
Class _2S_^Si^ 



CCBOyGHT DfiPOSm 



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Gestures in Ivory 



By 
HAROLD HERSEY 



New York 

BRITTON PUBLISHING COMPANY 

1919 



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Copyright, 1919, by 
HAROLD HERSEY / 



550 copies printed from 
type and numbered and 
the type distributed. 



©Cl.A53570i C 



With sincere affection this 
book is dedicated to 
Wyndham Martyn, 
Walter Adolphe Roberts, 
Richardson Wright, 
the Three Musketeers who have 
battled ever for all that is sin- 
cere and beautiful in poetry. 



Thanks are due the editors of 
the following magazines for per- 
mission to reprint many of these 
poems : Ainslee's, House and Gar- 
den Magacine, Smart Set, Paris- 
ienne. Saucy Stories, The Thrill 
Book, etc. etc. 



CONTENTS 

GESTURES IN IVORY 

PAGE 

The Painted Lady i 

An Hour of Grace 2 

The Dreams of Men 4 

The Buddha 6 

Art 7 

For Always and Forever 8 

The Less Heroic and Desired Thing 9 

Their Sons — 1918 10 

Patchin Place — Afterwards 11 

Flowerlight 12 

The Lutanist 13 

Little Wife 14 

The Great Procession — 1918 15 

My Lovely 16 

Reward 17 

A Fragment 18 

Patchin Place Nocturnes 19 

The King 21 

Song 22 

When the Heart Awakens 23 

The Hero 24 

The Simple Flesh 25 

The Prayer of a Certain Juggler of Words ... 26 

Little Girl 27 

The After Dawn 28 

The Battle 29 

Marjaneh 30 

The Dusk 31 

i 



CONTENTS 



Captain Georges Guynemer 32 

The Half-Baked Ones 34 

Hindsight 44 

Amy Munson 45 

Gestures in Ivory 54 

A Song of Patchin Place 61 



UNIFORMS 

Uniforms — I, II 63 

Singing in Camp 67 

On Leave 68 

Bleeding Heart 69 

The Machine Stops — November, 1918 70 

Compensation 73 

Lines 74 

Stray Lines 75 

Impressions 76 

Women 77 

Soldier, Soldier 78 

The Gift of Silence 79 

Pictures in Gray 80 

A Lament 82 

Dust 83 

Furloughs 84 

Thoughts of a Uniform 86 

Song 87 

Rivers of Laughter 88 

A Letter 90 

The Prizefight 91 

A Letter Written from a Fort 93 

The Great Lesson 97 

Impressions 98 

To the Parlor Poets of America 99 

At Parting 100 

Major Raoul Lufbery loi 

The Unspeakable 103 

Guardhouse 104 

Gassed 105 



CONTENTS iii 

Commands io6 

Discharged 107 

Returning Uniforms 108 

Memories . no 

THE WIDE ROAD 

Foreword m 

Before the Hour of Noon 112 

The Heights of Life ii5 

Light and Darkness 118 

The Ripening Fruit 120 

Knowledge and Belief 122 

Through the Desert 123 

The Awakening 125 

The Psalm of Death 127 

THE CUP OF LIFE 

Four Pages from the Diary of a Murderer's Wife . . 128 

The Christening 131 

The Rolling Stones I33 

The Moralists I34 

The Marriage I35 

The Church 138 

SILHOUETTES OF THE COUNTRY 

Silence 142 

At the Crossroads — I, H 144 

Romance I45 

The Children 146 

At Dusk I47 

The Secret Story 148 

"In the Spring a Young Man's Fancy" 151 

LOOSE LEAVES 

The Great Symphony I54 

To 156 



iv CONTENTS 

Our Helen I57 

Sex 158 

The Public Library I59 

To My Love with Some Verses 160 

L'Envoi 161 

A Woman's Dress 162 

Florence, Italy, 1500 163 

Dead Hands 165 

Song 167 

Lines at Random 168 



GESTURES IN IVORY 



THE PAINTED LADY 

(For a. E. Renner) 

The painted lady smiled: 
"You are a child . . . mere child. 
She tapped him with her fan : 
"Go off and be a man," 

He kissed her slim hand then: 
"You'll hear of me again." 
They did . . . some lived to tell 
How he went forth and fell; 

Torn body on a fence, 
Death as a recompense, 
One arm flung o'er his head 
As children do in bed. 

The painted lady smiled : 
"He may have been a child." 
She waved her gaudy fan : 
"But died just like a man." 

Within that painted house 
Where bellied men carouse, 
The painted lady's face 
Was lighted as with grace. 



AN HOUR OF GRACE 

And these are the things we gather, each in his speeding 

hour . . . 
To some a hint of light that fills a withered face, 
To others a touch of beauty haunting a broken flower, 
To all a night of silence after an hour of grace. 

Along the earth's far edges life burns away the scars 
And ere the dawn is grey, through flaming rings of space, 
We plunge down deathward through a hurricane of stars, 
Remembering her hands in that little hour of grace. 

The tendrils of her hair then whisper at our ears. 
And her fingers like budding flowers in their sleeves of lace, 
Have left their light touch on us, and all the hungry years 
Are singing of that hour, that little hour of grace. 

And every misered trinket that we have gathered up 
Is rusted or broken or lost each in a separate place. 
The wine of the years a dream within a shattered cup 
Spilt in a moment of madness, a little hour of grace. 

And with each morning and the setting sun our calls 

Fill all the world with echoes that after echoes race, 

And when no answer comes in all those white, white halls 

We sink in a heap of wonder with our little hour of grace. 

Life's hidden lamps are lowered, the stunted wicks are 

trimmed 
While pale against the sky the shadows interlace 
With the purple voice of her eyes . . . the deathless songs 

she hymned 
Are only of that hour, that little hour of grace. 



AN HOUR OF GRACE 

And now each day is like a wasted song about 
The dead lips of an ill-tuned instrument; the face 
Of night is veiled with death, each star has fluttered out 
As though in mourning for our little hour of grace. 

And these are the things we gather, each in his speeding 

hour . . . 
To some a hint of light that fills a ivithered face, 
To others a touch of heauty\ haunting a broken flower, 
To all a night of silence after an hour of grace. 



THE DREAMS OF MEN 
(For Edward ICirby) 

The great, great banners go before, 

To all the far winds thrown 
And though men march beneath them to the war, 

They die alone. 

Steel and clash of steel and voice of hell, 

Bare fields and broken hearts. 
They go into the dust of night ... Ah ! wish them well, 

They play their parts. 

And where are all our toys, our visionings. 
That clung to us since we were boys of ten. 

Are they forgotten with the other things? 
Alas, the dreams, the dreams of men. 

Pile up the dead and keep the powder fresh. 

Bugle and fife and drum, 
The red-hot cannons roar for human flesh. . . . 

They come, they come. 

Beneath the haunted silence of the sky 

The red battalions war, 
And those who care enough to win or die 

Come back no more. 

And all the deeds of saints . . . what are they worth 

Their lofty visions and the mighty pen, 
The splendid sadness and the roaring mirth? 

Alas, the dreams, the dreams of men. 



THE DREAMS OF MEN 

Across the wasted bosom of the earth 

The frenzied columns streak 
And the hosts who love them and who gave them birth 

They dare not speak. 

And where are all the songs that have been sung? 

Can things once beautiful be so again? 
The viols of the singers are unstrung. . . . 

Alas, the dreams, the dreams of men. 



THE BUDDHA 

(For Theodore Dreiser) 

The Buddha sits there with its fleshless eyes 
Like some grim stoic scorning every ill, 
His belly long since having had its fill 
And bulging foolishly from oversize ; 
The carven garments loop against the thighs. 
Around the battered image lingers still 
The deep impression of a single will 
As patient as its crafty art was wise. 

Some great lone dreamer in an ancient land 
Carved this old idol with despotic grace 
And made the thing appear to understand 
The mysteries that haunt the human race, 
Concealing with a flourish of the hand 
Man's ignorance behind a silent face. 



ART 
(For John Cowper Powys) 

There was a poet and a mighty king . . . 
The first a shrunken fool, of shapeless face, 
The second, proud of an immortal place, 

Whose glory was a golden, stately thing. 

The poet was the butt, the withered sting, 
Yet clung unto a burning sense of grace; 
He sung the glories of that splendid race 

As only those who suffer dare to sing. 

The songs that filled a century with light 
The king scorned as a warrior scorns the pen 

And yet of all that empire's dazzling might. 
The dusty marching of those ancient men, 

Naught lives but what the poet's visioned sight 
Creates in music for us once again. 



FOR ALWAYS AND FOREVER 

(For Edith Dorchester) 

"For always and forever," the lady said, "O King of Kings," 
And yet to dust 

His mighty empire crumbled in a broken heap of things, 
As all things must. 

"For always and forever," sang the priests of Babylon 
Who lived too well, 

A song upon the lips of many lovers in Illion 
Before it fell. 

"For always and forever," Antony said unto one 

And kissed her hands ; 

Their glory was a moment, their dreams of dust . . . now does 

the sun 
Beat on the sands. 

"For always and forever," said the Roman emperors, 
"Glory is ours !" 

But where are all the golden hosts that went upon their wars ; 
Their shining towers ? 

"For always and forever," cried they on the great crusades, 
"For God we fight!" 

To-day ... a memory of shattered fields and broken blades, 
An aching night. 



THE LESS HEROIC AND DESIRED THING— 1917 
(For Wyndham Martyn) 

One hears much shouting and the roar of hands 
That roll in rising echoes down the street; 
The great applause ; the tread of marching feet . . . 

A nation's tribute to despairing lands. 

The citizen with vain, uplifted hands 
Who listens, grimly, as the proud drums beat. 
May wonder well where all these visions meet 

In unison to make such great demands. 

The soldiers pass and leave him standing there 
When all the crowd has melted, wondering 

How he may hold his heart against despair. 
High on the night his mounting dreams take wing 

But Fate bids him stay home, fulfilling there 
The less heroic and desired thing. 



THEIR SONS— 1918 
(For Elaine Sterne) 

The dust is gathering on their toys, for when 
The nursery is closed with none to play 
What is there for the wiser heads to say? 

The hobby horse will never rock again, 

Nor Robin Hood lurk in his ivied glen 
And leaden soldiers dash into the fray. . . . 
They've laid the tiny treasures all away 

As unbefitting those who fought like men. 

The chubby hands that pulled a sister's hair 

Or swung the wooden swords around her head, 
Have written of the battles "over there" 

But left out much that cowards might have said- 
All day the house is silent yet the air 

Seems strangely filled with voices of the dead. 



10 



PATCHIN PLACE— AFTERWARDS 

(For Frederick Booth) 

Scraps of song wrought out of pain 
Whose every echo lingers ; 
Days that cannot live again, 
The touch of slender fingers. 

The burning madness of their lips, 
A bare room stripped of song, 
A darkness that around them slips . . . 
They loved and were not strong. 



11 



FLOWERLIGHT 

I sTiould have torn my music from you, 
Struck every silent string 
And swept you gladly from your feet 
So that I might sing. 

But a fortress taken is not always won . . 
Or a kingdom in an hour . . . 
Come! let us go singing out of the desert 
Delirious with power. 



12 



THE LUTANIST 
(For Mary Carolyn Da vies) 

I whisper softly in the vainest heart, 

I scorn the fury of the strong ; 
Like wine I make the crumbling senses start 

And cloak my coming in a song. 

Along the borders of the wind I run, 

Over the hills at break of day ; 
Between the shadows and the evening sun 

I lift my lute and softly play. 

I am the winter in the heart of spring, 

I race around the earth at will ; 
I stir the world with endless murmuring 

Of ancient music never still. 

I whisper through the darkness of the night, 
And in the twilight of the years 

To every wasted heart my music's flight 
Brings silence and the end of tears. 



13 



LITTLE WIFE 

Little wife who waits so patiently 
Sewing in the easy chair, 
What is it you are thinking of. 
Sitting so quiet there? 

You do not read the papers now, 
The blood-red horrors fill them all : 
You have the living memory 
Around you like a wall. 

One evening not so long ago 

They must have touched your own small door 

And told you that there is no need 

Of waiting any more. 



14 



THE GREAT PROCESSION— 1918 
(For Nina Wilcox Putnam) 

They've swept the last red heirlooms in the dust 
Where all the shadows of forgotten faces 
Within the aching darkness leave no traces. 

And every breast is but a grave, a crust 

Where some sweet voice died out within a gust 
Of murder . . . through those silent, starlit spaces 
The long procession treads the unknown places 

To where Fate stands with kindly hands outthrust. 

And for the things that life might dare deny 
To those whose duty still remained undone 

They have no thought; they do not wonder why 
The battles they have fought are yet unwon. . . . 

Against the dusty outlines of the sky 
They go into the silence, one by one. 



16 



MY LOVELY 

You might waste worlds to fill a wish of mine, 
And live on faith in me past all despair, 
Then as you drank life's final glass of wine 
Laugh at the broken beauty visioned there. 

Like trinkets lost in some mad throw of dice 
If I but asked you would give each hour 
And cast yourself a flaming sacrifice 
Beneath my footsteps like a shattered flower. 

You would tear every cord of living flesh 

With bleeding hands that I might plunder there 

New harmonies to keep my vision fresh; 

And spend your strength and give me strength to spare. 

You crush your hopes into the very dust, 
Or scorn the splendour of an empire's might 
And are content upon a piece of crust 
To buy new oil to feed this trembling light. 

How many like yourself have stirred the art 
That slumbered in a weakling . . . played the game 
Unto the finish with despairing heart 
Whose courage only fanned a dying flame! 



16 



REWARD 

Think of all the things that you have almost had 
Through all the years that you have bluffed at things 
With superficial faith ... ah ! how it stings 

To know that all your art is but a fad ; 

To know that all your pose of being bad 
And ruffling up conventional women's wings ; 
That all the loves of which your poor muse sings 

But marks you down as one stupendous cad. 

How it must hurt to know the bitter zest 
Of never reaching any unknown lands, 

Of never knowing that divine unrest 
That comes to him whose spirit understands, 

To reach at all the skies upon your quest 
With all the suns and stars beyond your hands. 



1? 



A FRAGMENT 

In what remembered hour, 
In what far distant lands, 

Shall I hold like some strange flower 
The petals of her hands? 



18 



PATCHIN PLACE NOCTURNES 



Softly let us go 

From this dear room ... the night's 
Swift currents ebb and flow 

With sharp, street lights. 

Softly let us go 

With trembling, clasped fingers. 
How should we children know 

That passion lingers? 



The shadows fall; 

Each interlaces 
Upon the wall 

In checkered spaces. 

A phonograph 

Is heard somewhere. 
A woman's laugh 

Dies on the air. 

The night's hot breath 
Is close. It slips 

Like the hands of Death 
Across the lips. 

A clothes line sags 
From a window box 

With limp, wet rags 
And colored socks. 



19 



PATCHIN PLACE NOCTURNES 



The shadows fall; 

Each interlaces 
Upon the wall 

In checkered spaces. 



uz 



The window where I saw your questioning face 
Is now a vacant, solitary place. 

The silent door, the quiet, quiet hall 
Draped heavily with shadows at evenfall. 

The touch of burning hands . . . the days of grace 
The memory of your love in Patchin Place, 



20 



THE KING 
(For Walter Adolphe Roberts) 

Nothing unfound and all the world his own . . . 

Women of slender hands with scented flowers ; 

Sad violins to lull him in those hours 
Of pomp when in a crowd one dreams alone; 
Gay cavaliers and arms and hosts unknown 

To do his princely conquests ; titan's powers ; 

Plowed fields ; cities ; mines ; castles ; high towers ; 
Huge subject nations yoked about his throne. 

Yet once it was that he was young ... he kissed 

A lady's fingers on his bended knees, 
Begging a token of lace about her wrist; 

But glancing o'er his back the young king sees 
Her eyes give promise to a youth fame missed . . . 

How dull are then his tawdry victories. 



21 



SONG 

Oh, the dawn is grey and my love is old, 
Shrunken and haggard she stoops along 
With her cheerless lips that have learned to scold, 
Palsied hands that once filled me with song. 

It is pitiful now to see her so, 

To taste her voice and feel her eyes. . . . 

I, too, am old and I ought to know, 

But what shall we do when our memory dies? 



23 



WHEN THE HEART AWAKENS 

Let us forget that love is like a song 

Life sings to lull the spirit's endless fears. . . . 

Miladi, echoes fill our willing ears 
The lonely gods are jealous of . . . the strong 
High inspiration that ignores wrong. . . . 

For what grim need have we of lovers' tears? 

The morning dawns and when the night appears 
Love can find refuge hidden in the throng. 

The heart awakens and the strength of spring 
Lays heavy silence on the old refrain 

That lovers sigh about and poets sing. . . . 
So swift are we to squander what we gain 

That when love thrills us with its echoing 
We sink all beauty in a world of pain. 



33 



THE HERO 

I saw the great procession come, 

He proudly riding there. 
I clutched our baby's hand, swept dumb 

With my despair. 

He seemed so proud, so straight and proud 

Upon his horse. His sword 
Flashed like a light above the crowd. . . . 

My lover-lord ! 

They cheered his name. He bowed and smiled 

With that fine ease and then 
Moved out of sight. I took our child 

Back home again. 



24 



THE SIMPLE FLESH 
(For Harry Kemp) 

I weary of solemnity, of proud, 

High dullness and of feeble hands that seek 
The pulse of splendid power, but are weak 

With listening to the fury of the crowd. 

Oh, give us gruff old temple-smashers, loud 
Of tongue; swashbucklers; lovers of the bleak, 
Grim battle in the dawn, yet who are meek 

Enough to kneel unto their gods, heads bowed. 

So many things await destruction still . . . 

Empires, rulers, clans of rich disdain, 
Man's golden dignity, his feeble will. 

His sly devices and his whispered gain. 
Give us the simple flesh, the age-old thrill 

Of humble men and women once again. 



25 



THE PRAYER OF A CERTAIN JUGGLER OF WORDS 

I have spent the gifts that were mine to waste, 
Borrowed and sold my hopes of heaven, 

The trinkets are brass, the jewels paste . . . 
Mother of God, am I forgiven? 

A feather that floats in the moon's grey beams, 
A song that is lost ere the heart counts seven, 

The bitter dust of deathless dreams . . . 
Mother of God. am I forgiven? 

The agon}' of eyes and sleepless sleep, 

The voice of beauty, broken, uneven, 
The murmur of music beneath the deep . . . 

Mother of God, am I forgiven? 



26 



LITTLE GIRL 

(For Dorothy Marguerite) 

Little girl with your big eyes 

Like saucers 

Full of strawberries and cream. 

Why do you smile so archly? 

Wisdom speaks early 

Through simple channels, 

I fancy, 

But are strawberries and cream wisdom? 



37 



THE AFTER DAWN 

There is the sound of music in distant spaces 
And the voice of the flesh is like heavy thunder ; 

Here of all the heavenly places 
We have swept our dull, dull sighs asunder. 

There are trembling hands that are locked in passion, 
There are v/hispers that fill the four cracked walls, 

And an ancient silence in a time-worn fashion 
Upon the spirit in the small room falls. 

What shall be said now ... do the hot, clasped fingers 
Make utterance louder than pleasure or pain? 

A touch of deliberate ecstasy lingers 
And falls and rises and falls again. 

Then let us bestir and look out at the morning, 
The night has sped swiftly and suddenly dies ; 

Kiss me and smile. . . . The heart's hot warning 
Arouses new burdens and prophecies. 



28 



THE BATTLE 

You delved in grim philosophies ; in creeds 
Outworn with ancient handling; both in frail, 
Creative spurts of beauty and in stale 

Forgotten volumes of forgotten needs. 

You saw the flowers, catalogued the weeds 
With gritty fervor, while the pale, 
Sad poets claimed your heart, and now you fail 

To sing because your wasted spirit bleeds. 

You sought the unexplored on the earth, 
Pursued faint shadows Ifke a thoughtless elf, 

You theorized on love and death and birth, 
Lived years with dusty books upon the shelf. 

Then gave life up as though it lacked all worth 
Because you lost the battle with yourself. 



MARJANEH 

(For Miladi) 

We should not be too soon 
With swift demands, 
Nor move too swift on noon 
Yet, love, thy hands! 

We should not fail our trust, 
Nor forge new bands. 
But hunger in the dust . . . 
Yet, love, thy hands ! 



30 



THE DUSK 
(For Merle Hersey) 

The room is stilled ; 

These speechless walls 
Seem strangely filled 

As silence falls. 

Your hands, your grace . 

These gentle things 
Sing in this place 

Like viol strings. 

This chair, this glass . . . 

Time has its way: 
"Let beauty pass 

With fading day." 



3J 



CAPTAIN GEORGES GUYNEMER 

A Shepherd of the Skies 

You were a shepherd of the skies, who knew 

The unseen valleys of the air like one 
That lived his life among the hills, and through 

The dusty pathways of the clouds you spun 
Upon your shining wings, a knight that flew 

Against the golden empire of the sun. 

O shepherd of the skies, upon your flight, 
The heartbeat of the engine in your ears, 

You knew the depths and wonder of the night, 
The throbbing silence as the dawn appears 

When climbing to some strange and splendid height 
You challenged like a god the mighty spheres. 

Beneath you was that spectacle of hell, 

But 'round you were the snow-white clouds, the strong 
Swift piling of them when the thunder fell, 

The after glory as you soared along, 
The earth great ages distant, and its spell 

A muffled echo of remembered song. 

Far, far below you at a single glance 

Wild flocks of birds were; underneath them spread 
The silent cities, and above, perchance. 

The drone of flyers that before you fled. 
Then everywhere the frozen fields of France, 

Slopes where the battles raged, the dead. 



32 



CAPTAIN GEORGES GUYNEMER 

A knight that sallied forth all unafraid 

Upon those shining wings ; his lance at rest, 

Armed for the swift attack, — the sudden raid, 
The tourney with an uninvited guest. 

Who met the enemy where none might aid, 
A lonely knight upon a splendid quest. 

Shall they tell of the end? Perhaps, they too 
Fell in the gust of death when it was done. 

O shepherd of the skies, what can we do 
When all these battles have been lost and won 

For all the knights on shining wings who flew 
Against the golden empire of the sun? 



33 



THE HALF-BAKED ONES 

(For Richardson Wright) 

The great gods love as only the great gods can, 
But the gift of a god is the gift of a man . . . 
To love and be loved by a woman. 

♦ * * ♦ * ♦ » 

They met . . . those two . . . and did not wonder whether 

'Twas love they claimed, but clung like death together. 

Their home . . . three tiny rooms in Patchin Place, 

A bit of street that seemed a touch of grace 

Against the Night Court where on summer nights 

The shrieks of drunken prisoners pierce the heights 

Of star-lit silences ... a walled-in street 

Where modern life and age-old romance meet. 

Here dwelt the artists, writers and the crew 

Who live upon the dreams of things they do. 

Big Marley Sands, the poet, clumsy, crude, 

But like a god of flaming strength, imbued 

With artistry and now and then the gift 

Of sudden genius . . . born out west, and swift 

In speech, condemning right and left, but still 

Divinely fired. Then, the broken, tongueless will 

Of Amy Munson, living on the crust. 

The shell of wasted faith, upon the past, 

The semblance of a mighty love that cast 

It's shadow on her weak, dim life ... a kind 

Of shaded lamp, a faded, feeble mind 

That renders service of the lips, but not 

The heart ... a wisp of flesh that love forgot; 

Cal Buxton, buccaneer of hearts; O'Neal, 

The author of two slender books of real, 

And singing Irish verse ; three wrecks of stale, 



34 



THE HALF-BAKED ONES 

Grim womanhood who fled before the gale 

That heralded some feeble early passion, 

Who wore their dresses with Bohemian fashion ; 

And then the poet Randolph and his wife 

Swept back and forth across the seas of life. 

He was the sort who live on hope, the kind 

Of man who now and then uplifts the mind 

With music if the fates conspire so, 

A man of promise as men come and go ; 

Yet fated for defeat unless he brought 

His victory from battles that are fought 

And lost. The woman had belief. She knew 

She loved. Upon that love, as people do, 

Her faith found strength in love alone, and grew. 

While goodness knows he didn't doubt his part . . . 

He felt himself a perfect god of art. 

How true it is that poets always claim 

From shreds of things the cherished rights of fame 

Before they've earned them. Yet, to her he seemed 

A great, a lovely spirit ... so she dreamed 

Of coming conquests with a heart of song. 

And on her strength he sang and grew quite strong. 

He took . . . she gave . . . around the blazing fire 
He built his courage on her swift desire. 
How easy to be great with those who hold 
Us dear ... to friends our words are priceless gold, 
Our theories valuable, our viewpoints shrewd. 
Most of the lions in their set, imbued 
With glory, lived upon some passing flare. 
They stripped their meagre, silly spirits bare, 
Called it "new poetry" . . . new everything . . . 
Yet not a Reese among them who could sing . . . 
One can be great and still do nothing there. 
Among the cliques and clans of Washington Square. 

No matter what he did it came out wrong. 
But still he dared to claim that he was strong 



35 



THE HALF-BAKED ONES 

Like all weak men who turn their loves to song. 

Her life was but a vain apology 

For every weakness of his poetry. 

"He's young ... he possibly may learn that life 

Is not a thing of murk and grime and strife 

Without a glimmer of immortal light" . . . 

So was it that the woman lost her nght. 
When first he started publishing his things 
Some few who trust a man that only sings, 
Praising everything that he may do, 
Placed him upon an unearned height. Too soon 
He stood alone . . . dawn in the lap of noon . . . 
The woman's faith that burned unendingly, 
Left him to live on praise and wander free 
Through all the labyrinths that genius gives 
To genius. 

A critic, famed and lauded, read a line 
A friend had quoted . . . something really fine, 
An epic note where Randolph cast the spell 
That many dreamers have before they fell. 
The critic trusted chance and called to find 
If genius lurked within this unknown mind. 
I often pause to think how close he came 
To winning just a few stray words of fame. 

Amid their friends the critic found the two, 

The poet and his wife, and that loud crew 

Who scorned all law. Around the fireside 

He heard the standards of his art defied, 

And wondered: "Can a man lay low 

The law that governs us who come and go 

Beneath the lash of flesh, the money lust, 

The crimson flattery, the bitter crust, 

On which men dare to dream and live and toil?' 

He thought of this and felt his anger boil 



THE HALF-BAKED ONES 

Beyond control. These whippersnappers dared 

To open up what many masters spared. 

He heard the thundering poet, Marley Sands, 

Orate on freedom, waving heavy hands 

As though to make his arguments more clear. 

But what he said meant only this: Do what 

You will, if you are great ... no door is shut 

To genius . . . roar and howl and yell and scream, 

Believe in naught but self and what you dream. 

The critic watched her sitting there ... his wife . . 

The thought of it went through him like a knife. 

"These praters claim all freedom to the great," 

He said, and smiled into her eyes. "I'd wait 

If I were they until I learned to see 

If genius lived in them and left them free." 

Randolph expressed in gentle verse that stood 

For all the things within him that were good, 

His tiny world of thought . . , the pity being 

That he had ears that heard not and eyes unseeing. 

But yet he sang well . . . there was something new 

And beautiful in all that he would do. 

The charm lay in the touch of grace. And yet 

Her love so flamed that she could not forget 

An instant. Thus it was his poems flared 

To some few honors just because she cared. 

She listened by the fireside, her slender feet 

Perched on the fender ... it was only meet 

That she should sacrifice herself, she said 

"The world will judge me after I am dead." 

"He must be great," whispered she at times 

To quiet her distrust of endless rhymes 

Pouring from his pen. 

The critic came 
Again and looked upon this bitter game. 
"You fling your secrets to the winds," he cried, 
"There must be things that even poets hide, 

37 



THE HALF-BAKED ONES 

The world is busy . . . does it care to know 

Each idle pain, each shading of your woe, 

Describe yourself but not as though that means 

You are the thing that moves behind the scenes 

Whose vast importance life is bursting for . . . 

Forget yourself a moment . . . lock that door 

Forever and awaken to the power 

That builds an empire from a broken hour." 

But when the critic spoke that way, the few 

Who sat around the little room, outgrew 

Their patience, slandered such a faith. She heard 

The robust poet, Marley Sands, bestirred 

To mighty anger at the things he chose to claim 

"Were dull convention and the death of fame." 

The critic listened, then remarked: "Why pause 

To dwell upon the dull effects, the cause 

Of fame. I have no battle there. I seek 

For genius that is unafraid to speak 

Of living things in strange and splendid keys; 

A poet, say, whose voice builds mysteries 

From ordinary days, from human things of life; 

Who plunges into darkness, joy and strife. 

Who dares to sing of what he sees, who fills 

Us with a majesty that genius wills 

Out of the few. God, give us men to do 

The deeds of dreams." 

The critic ceased. He knew 
In that dark circle of dejected faces 
How much he'd lost. His mind pierced many spaces 
Within a moment. Putting by his fears 
He saw her eyes were red with foolish tears. 
Their hands met in the silence. Then he went. 
Behind, the gay Bohemian's merriment 
Went on at his expense . . . her own despair 
Filled every fibre . . . she rose and left them there. 
Big Marley Sands went ranting on about 
His freedom; and the poet Randolph's shout 



THE HALF-BAKED ONES 

Of laughter following every bellowed phrase. 
She threw herself upon the bed. "Such praise 
As their's he lives upon," she moaned, her face 
Pressed hard against the pillows. "Give him grace 
To earn his soul," she sobbed, "O let him gain 
His dreams ; let him forget his idle pain." 

Could you have seen this dreamer first. 

Before his spirit satisfied its thirst 

For petty grandeur, little talk and praise ; 

Could you have seen him in those early days 

You would have loved him for his smile, his grace, 

The eyes like shaded candles in his face ; 

Cool, slender fingers . . . dreaming all the time. 

And turning every dream into a rhyme. 

So are they first . . .the city's huge hands grip 

Them harshly at the throat and swiftly strip 

Their shallow spirits, leaving but a shell, 

Mere broken beauty, lil^e a tongueless bell 

That hangs in place. That is the city's way 

With weaklings. 

When the critic left that night, 
She knew that he had given up the fight. 
She heard them arguing until the dawn, 
The heavy silence after they were gone, 
Then his slow footsteps to the room. She lay 
Quite still and waited for the things he'd say 
For leaving them alone. "O stop," she sobbed, 
"Our day is dead . . . you and your kind have robbed 
Me of my dreams. I think I almost hate 
Our endless seeking, searching, and this state 
Of self-desire, silly praise and murk, 
This half-baked world." 

She raised herself upon 
The bed and watched him through the drizzling dawn, 



39 



THE HALF-BAKED ONES 

While he looked out the window. Had he turned 
He would have seen that love within her burned, 
An open flame. Her hair fell down her face; 
The robe she wore ... a gentle thing of lace . . . 
Had fallen from one shoulder and the white 
Firm breasts made her a simple, pleasing sight. 
He didn't turn and in that act he lost 
Her faith, her. love, her hopes ... the coming cost 
Was not upon him yet . . . she lived and fed 
His daily wants. 

Three months went by. They knew 
That underneath her bosom slowly grew 
The semblance of their broken selves . . . their child. 
It almost healed and halfway reconciled 
Her to her lot . . . in him the bitterness 
Had grown upon her endless graciousness, 
Her body and its wonders . . . now that w^ent 
Into her offspring and her strength was spent. 
These days they had but little funds . . . and food, 
It barely cared for her ... his growing mood 
Was one of anger. Often when he laid 
His hand upon their door he wished he'd stayed 
Among his friends. He found her usually 
Bent o'er the washing, sewing busily 
At other times, or dreaming out an hour 
Beside the window. Once he came and found 
Her prone upon the floor . . . she made no sound. 
He lifted up her body and the head 
Dropped sluggishly against his arm. In bed 
She soon recovered and his whitened face 
Gave her a moment of exquisite grace. 

Time sped and he forgot. A friend who knew 
Her near condition and what best to do. 
Lived just across the hall. One night she heard 
The poet stamp downstairs in anger, then 
Slam hard the door and not return again. 
Each fibre in her spirit roused and stirred. 

40 



THE HALF-BAKED ONES 

She feared to break upon that solitude 

That waited her, but dauntless as her word 

She gently tapped upon the door. 

No answer came ... as gently then once more 

She tapped and waited. Still no word. Without 

More hesitation, scorning every doubt 

She entered. There before the fire lay the still 

Soft body of the poet's wife . . . her will 

Had left her prone. The friend called other aid, 

Bore her to bed and close beside her stayed 

Through all the darkened hours. Shall we tell 

The secrets of the night . . . enough the spell 

Of death lay on her and the morning light 

Was witness to the spirit's sudden flight . . . 

The spirit's sudden flight , . . let's say, the two 

That fled with that one death. 'Tis well we drew 

A curtain on the scene when Randolph learned 

That now no longer in his home there burned 

That flaming soul, who sacrificed herself 

To put his books upon Fame's dusty shelf. 

The message found him with his friends. He read 

The short, sharp words, "Your dear, sweet wife is dead. 

Come home at once." He went alone and saw 

Her lying white and still. His heart went raw. 

And in an instant he had learned how much 

Depends upon the outside world . . . the touch 

Of finite things that link infinity 

With those that dare to dwell and dream quite free. 

He fell upon his knees beside her clay 

'T've thrown the dearest gift of all away." 

He sobbed as cowards do. 

Oh, how it hurts to love the things life gives ; 
To those who dare a little life forgives. . . . 
A toss of dice with one's whole world at stake ; 
A chance ; to always give more than we take ; 
A strength that wastes itself in strength. . . . 



41 



THE HALF-BAKED ONES 

He only knew that all he'd dared and done 
Had cost her more than she had ever won. 
A dream that has dissolved within a dream, 
And only then did all her graces seem 
As lovely as they were, for how death grips 
When it has set its silence on the lips 
Of those we love. 

Too weak to end it all, 
Too weak to carry on, these weaklings fall 
Into a twilight land and go their way 
Alone, in withered hope and dull decay. 
Her shoulders bore his burdens every time, 
Her glory raised his silly gift of rhyme 
To something finer than himself in spite 
Of weakness, laziness and lust ... his light 
Was but a spluttering, sickly candle flame 
Held in a broken socket . . . then she came 
With singing strength and trimmed the dirty wick, 
And with her love as socket did a trick 
That blinded both. He'd whined his feeble sorrows 
In her ears and sung of vain to-morrows. 
She let him lay his fingers on her cheek 
Sing to her, talk to her and be proud and weak. 

I shall not estimate how much it cost, 
Nor set a seal upon the things he'd lost. 
Enough that he still drifts around the streets 
Worn out from dreaming of his dull defeats. 

He hangs around Bohemian restaurants, 
Their shallowness supplying all his wants. 
They'll listen anyhow amid their cups 
To filthy stories told by idle pups. 
Now and again a verse of his, a line 
Has some stray touch of vision once divine. 
His books, mere broken promises ... his pen 
Shall never gain it's winged speed again. 



42 



THE HALF-BAKED ONES 

There are so many Randolphs who aspire 

To shape their destinies from dead desire ; 

So many poets . . . that alas, their fight 

Is lost in the beginning ... as a light 

Whose wick is newly trimmed and brightly burns, 

But yet the gods in their divinity forget 

And leave the lamp half-filled with oil. 

The honest things, the simple truths, the trust 
Divine ... so close a handful of mere dust 
Becomes a living house of beauty . . . great 
Are higher men, the pomp of wealth, of state, 
But in some lovely spirit penitent, 
All nature blends and every art is spent 
For real success . . . but Randolph lost his heart 
By breaking down the rudiments of art. 
Her sacrifice, her death, her slender hands 
That molded him . . . with even Marley Sands, 
The rough, the loud, he would have understood. 
Yet Randolph mourned and never could. 



43 



HINDSIGHT 

I come back to you now many times 

Tired of my silly rhymes 

As a horse grown weary of its load 

Halting on the dusty road. 

You were older by twenty years than me, 

CMy first faint breath of reality) 

You spoke of a child, long dead ... a man 

Who killed your hopes when your marriage began. 

These, and so many things of grief 

In which my childhood found relief. 

I worked, I slaved for j^ou like one 

Whose daily chores are never done. ' 

When you were ill I kissed your slim, 

White hands. I humored every whim, 

Now as I look behind and know 

That all your tales of ageless woe 

Were only shadows . . . just a pose, 

I reap the crop a dreamer sows. 

But yet how much would I have lost 

Had you not verified the cost. 

Once in his life each boy must give 

His soul into a woman's hands 

Whose losses taught her how to live. 



44 



AMY MUNSON 

(For William Sanger) 

Summer in Patchin Place ! The bitter heat 

Lies like a blanket on the little street. 

The very clothes-line in the courtyard sags 

With weary and bedraggled looking rags. 

Cushman's Bakery seems half asleep, 

And in the heat the August hours creep 

With sluggish speed. The Night Court's tongue is stilled, 

Though every broiling cell is jammed and filled 

With sweating prisoners. Our grocery store 

Is quiet; Mister Bauer fills the door 

In patient invitation but the trade 

Grows dull. "The Mayor," singing, is waylaid 

By Mrs. Wedes, lectured on the crime 

Of drinking for perhaps the thousandth time. 

We watch him totter up his steps. Our laugh 

Is broken by an ancient phonograph 

Across the way. It gets so hot at last 

We doze awhile. The "L" trains rumble past. 

The family on the bottom floor commence 

Anew an ancient war of words. The tense. 

Long days without good food destroy our chance 

To rest ... we toss like patients in a fever. 

Some poor fool tries to sing and stops. We sweat 

Half dressed and hungry, trying to forget 

Our poverty, our failure, but it seems 

Too hot to even talk about our dreams. 

So passes by the day. The night comes down 

Like some tremendous fog upon the town. 

The heat grows worse. We seek the roof. The sky 

Is blossoming with stars. The darkness falls 

A muddy fluid 'round the prison walls. 



45 



AMY MUNSON 

Some drunken thing begins to shriek. Each starts 
To talk as might some actors, in their parts 
Learned well. We mention goodly things to eat. 
Around us are the roofs, below the street 
Filled with a crowd of yelling children, then 
The shouts of drunken prisoners again. 

One of the "crowd" finds energy enough 

To tell us why he hasn't sold his "stuff." 

Tall Ballard Wexton, patient as the dead, 

Decides some issue, gravely nods his head 

In wisdom. Margaret O'Rourke, who keeps 

Our courage up, who seldom eats or sleeps 

So busy is she with our troubles, fills 

The night with sudden laughter at some tale 

That Harry Kemp is telling. Waldo, frail 

And nervous, answers sharply back. They pause 

While someone else cries down conventional laws. 

So then we start the long, long night. Our fears, 

Our failures and despair, each disappears. 

We praise ourselves. We have our dreams at least. 

We have our hopes. Who wants an idle feast 

When one has friends and visions? 

There was but one in all the bitter crew 
Who had the visioned strength to write, and who 
Had earned his place as poet . . . Harry Kemp. 
We were a jaded crew, we half-baked fools 
Who railed at facts and scorned all human schools 
Of thought for rubbish. What did we possess 
That set us high above the sordidness 
Around us in the slums? We had no gifts. 
We built our temples crudely. Idle shifts 
In reason, nothing more nor less. We claimed 
Our genius when we should have been ashamed 
To hold our heads up in a world of men. 
Poor Amy Munson understood, but then 



46 



AMY MUNSON 

She was a ghost of all the world's rich sorrows, 

Forgotten yesterdays and vain to-morrows. 

She held aloof and lived alone in two 

Small rooms upon the second floor. She knew 

Our breed. Poor Amy fighting hard to learn 

What oil made lamps of human genius burn. 

I often hear her thin, sharp voice and see 

Her eyes and wonder how such things can be 

In life's great house of beauty. Yet she clung 

To faith as might a person that was strung 

Up by a mob . . . the dead flesh dangling there 

In awesome silence. I would wonder where 

She earned the law of dignity. For one 

So slender, with her crushed existence done, 

I found amazing strength. The skin was drawn 

Like parchment on her bones. The face was wan 

With agony, the eyes asleep. She said 

No word to us but tossed her tiny head 

In laughable disdain. We were a crowd 

Of violent and flaming creatures, loud 

In speech but slow in action; sworn to fight 

Convention and the lofty ones whose might 

Bore heavily upon the earth. We swore 

Against all laws, declared an endless war 

Upon the other artists who had won 

Some place within the glory of the sun. 

We doubted everything. We trusted none. 

Our feeble verse, our articles, our stories . . . 

What we would do ! . . . Ah, these were really glories. 

How pitiful it seems now that I look behind. 

Yet then . . . how can existence be defined 

Among a lot of idlers at a shrine 

That Harry Kemp had touched and made divine? 

We couldn't sell our "stuff." Who would have cared 

To read of superficial spirits bared 

Unto the ugly light? No editors 

Admitted us beyond their outer doors. 



47 



AMY MUNSON 

We fought in spite of that. I will admit 
That there was some faint hint of actual grit 
Displayed among our crew. I can recall 
The day I found young Waldo by the wall, 
His starved, slim body crumpled up, his hair 
Grown down about a face of real despair. 
That must have been divine — that pain. He ate 
That night a feast of truly royal state 
Upon the last few pennies we possessed. 
To starve and know you cannot win ... he did 
The thing ... a half diseased and scrawny kid 
From Pennsylvania . . . how it must have hurt 
To fall when one attains a feeble spurt 
Of glory and expires? Yes, some things 
Exist about which no one ever sings 
In idle verse. 

Among the rest not one possessed the touch 
Of genius, only splendid dreams . . . not such 
A wonder as would hold the world, but just 
A color and a hint. Born in the dust 
Of country towns and villages, they found 
In Greenwich Village atmosphere the kind 
That filled a longing in a burning mind. 
Som.e sell their work to-day. A pitiful 
Expression of the lack of value ; dull, 
Extremely dull, yet now and then, with some 
Stray picture or a line that leaves one dumb 
With anguish. 

Cal Buxton, dwelt within an endless dream, 

A saving fellow, always patiently 

Creating stories which he read to me 

With charming self-delight. A style so thick 

With college erudition that the click 

Of heavy words filled every page. He sold 

A tale or two, it left the poor child cold. 

It almost ruined every dream he had. 

I often used to watch the silly lad 

48 



AMY MUNSON 

Grind out his splendid phrases one by one 
And toil until he had a story done. 
He lived in my apartment for a time 
When I had deified all verse, the rhyme 
Beyond all flesh and spirit. We were there 
Among that sweating crowd of dreamers, bare 
Of pocket and of mind but rich in speech, 
Full half the summer. 

Meeker came m to see us in those days, 

A slender poet with the oddest ways. 

So serious and full of words. Two frail, 

Thin books already published and grown stale 

Save for a mighty line that he had staked 

His future on and then had ceased . . . half baked. 

An egotist, a bore, another sort 

Who are the playthings of their fancy, sport 

For every change in fate. 

To Amy . . . well 
The old days cast upon her heart a spell, 
A mighty grandeur which she loved to talk about. 
She read us lectures, Cal and me, without 
The slightest sense of humor . . . such a wisp 
She was that life had burnt into a crisp. 
Imagining that she had come from those 
In high estate, she looked on friends and foes 
With equal pity. What a shame. I knew 
That she had suffered all her weak life through. 
Yet why? Could she have blamed the rest? She did. 
Within her virgin breast she always hid 
A warm dislike of "lower things," as she 
Expressed it in her selfish way to me. 
"My birth, my breeding," she would say, "were more 
Than ordinary matters once. I wore 
The panoply of family honor then." 
She might raise up her slender fingers when 



49 



AMY MUNSON 

She said such things, her little cigarette 

Aglow. The starved, slim form could not forget 

Its cheated hours, ever. "I knew what 

It meant to live behind the doors kept shut 

Against the dirty mob. I went abroad 

For study, had rich clothes, knew all the fine 

Old families in my native state. Old wine, 

Old riches, blood . . . and then our poverty." 

Whenever this same point was voiced to me 

Her voice would falter or else stop entire. 

I watched this cenotaph of dead desire 

In vulgar greediness. I liked her though. 

So sad she was, so frail. Such flaming woe. 

The grey, grey hair, the delicate, white hands. . . . 

There are some things the rough soul understands. 

Her story was the truth. Her room, her slim, 

Torn body ... it was not an idle whim 

This past. She starved at times, yet held her head 

Up in the street as one might do well fed. 

Her little place forever painted blue 

Was her own faded nature through and through. 

The couch beside the window and one chair 

Drawn up before the fireplace. The bare. 

Rough floor, one picture of a kneeling girl . . . 

Herself . . . how was it that her fate should hurl 

This helpless bit of flesh into the place 

And stamp its misery upon her face? 

Disjointedly I learned her story from 

The very start. How idle youth was dumb 

With longing for a love. She feared it so. 

In all the people of that gaudy show 

Wherein she moved, no hero came. It seemed 

To me that she had only moved and dreamed 

As might a hermit on a lonely isle. 

Around her surged the angry waters, still 

She kept serene and held her feeble will 

At anchor. Pitiful. She told me then 

How she had learned to love just three real men. 

50 



AMY MUNSON 

The first, an idle fellow, who possessed 

A healthy income and no mind. The rest? 

At some friend's house he told her . . , she gave in. 

And even then she thought it was a sin 

To have a man's hands touch her face. He gripped 

Her to himself and held her thus close-lipped 

And trembling. All alone that night she heard 

His whisper in the hall. So moved, so stirred 

Was she that first she could not think. When strength 

Returned she opened up the door. The length 

Of hall was dark but at the end she saw 

Him entering a room. Here was the flaw. 

There met him at the door two arms, a face 

Pressed to his own. He disappeared. She stood 

There in her gracious negligee. Nor could 

She move a limb nor speak. Another one 

Of life's grim disillusions had been done. 

The next ... a doctor who administered 

A woman ten years older. She was stirred 

Out of her slumber by his tenderness, 

His sympathy, his strength, his gentleness. 

But he was married, so it came to nought. 

The third ... an artist poverty had brought 

Down to the last grim whisper of regret. 

A half-baked dreamer whose small sun had set. 

She loved him madly in those generous days 

Past thirty when a woman gladly pays 

In full for all her silence, interest 

Compounded since the start. Another jest 

Of nature. In a brief, swift summer all 

Her dreams had tumbled 'round her ears. The pall 

That followed . . . then, he ran away with some 

Soft bit of clever feminity, 

The kind that wrap one close and leave one dumb 

A sort of eyeless, tongueless poverty 

In spirit. Amy died upon her feet; 

Her grave this little room, this tiny street 



51 



AMY MUNSON 

Tucked in a corner of New York. I crossed 
Her path three years beyond the day she lost 
Her third, great lover. All she had . . . the sketch 
That hung upon her wall, drawn by the wretch 
Before he folded up his tents ... a thing 
That gripped the eyes and left one wondering 
How genius can destroy itself with genius. 

The hot, long summer hung like a disease 

Upon the flesh. The slender row of trees ; 

The blistered windows. Mrs. Wedes, grew 

To be like memories one always knew. 

We grouped each night upon the roof . . . our crowd. 

Imagined that we only were endowed 

With brilliance; argued, wrangled, wrote and raked 

Our silly minds for new ideas. Half baked. 

Ye gods, I wonder how we stood the heat 

That filled that crowded, dingy, little street. 

And how we stood ourselves. No humor then. 

We were not flesh of women nor of men. 

Mere ghosts that chattered in a ghostly land, 

A broken and disheartened, vulgar band 

Of egoists. Day after day the grind 

Continued in the world we hung behind 

With failure staring each one in the face. . . . 

The Don Quixotes of our Patchin Place. 

Each evening when I dared return without 

Disposing of my manuscripts, in doubt 

Of self and every old desire, I'd see 

Old Mrs. Wedes in her window, free 

And never worrying at all. It kept 

My courage up. Young Waldo Merrett wept 

At fate and all his idle hopes. It hurt 

To see those men cling to a woman's skirt. 

Yet Margaret O'Rourke held them to earth 

By finding in their weakness, points of worth. 



52 



AMY MUNSON 

There came a night of fierce and burning heat 

That killed the hearts of those in Patchin Street. 

We sweltered even on the roof. The sun 

Had set upon a heathen crowd ... it won 

A bloodless, sweaty battle with the dusk. 

We stretched out side by side upon the high 

And ancient roof, beneath the star-filled sky. 

We listened to a shrieking prisoner, 

A murderess, until the horror of her 

Sunk in our weakened flesh like pain. We slept 

By fitful starts. The heavy hours crept. 

I lay awake until it seemed to me 

As though I'd lost my mind. The clock struck three 

Upon the night court tower. I got up. 

The sky was like a many jewelled cup 

Of dark, blue porcelain. Below the air 

Had settled in a stagnant pool. Down there 

Was like an opened coffin, close and still. 

I took a long, deep breath. There lingers still 

The memory of gas in that close hall. 

Miss Munson's door was closed. It opened hard. 

I found that she quite clumsily had barred 

The way with chains. The air was stifling hot, 

While she lay on the floor tied in a knot 

Of sleepless agony. Her fragile form 

Seemed like a feather in my arms. The warm. 

Thick air laid on my lungs like syrup. There 

It was I learned how bitter is despair 

When one gives up all hope and flings away 

The cheap, cheap treasures of the heart. Her grey, 

Thin face was withered . . . she was dead. The war 

Of life had closed. I crossed her arms upon 

Her wasted breasts. The first flush of the dawn 

Now rested on the window sill. 



53 



GESTURES IN IVORY 
(Sonnet Sequence for Miladi) 

I 

We've risen winged on the breathless night 
And gazed across the great expanse of sky 
Where stars sink flaming through the void and die 

In final gasps of beauty and of light. . . . 

Now all the giant echoes of our flight, 
In clouds of music that have thundered by 
Are dwindling in a last despairing cry 

Like some rare moment shrunken out of sight. 

The splendid gift that makes our dream so sweet, 
That teaches us to find in beauty's thrall 

The wasting chords that make you throb and beat, 
To have all life wait on your beck and call, 

And rise up singing from the worst defeat . . . 
Miladi, yours the greatest gift of all. 



Ah ! you have hoarded what you might have spent 
When giving was so sweet a thing in you, 
And now that our resplendent night is through 

Consider well my purpose and intent. . . . 

I am no fleshless dreamer penitent 
Of that which even one could never do 
Who dares to linger when the game is new. . . . 

The oak grows as the early twig is bent. 

This friendship might be as a simple flower 
Whose roots are gaining strength through friendly hands, 



54 



GESTURES IN IVORY 

Or like some strange and half exotic power 
That the possessor never understands, 

It might have turned in that one lovely hour 
To something splendid in our clumsy hands. 



There as I talked to you across the wire 
The night drew close around us like a veil, 
For I had found a single, singing trail 

O'er which you came to me like living fire. 

Then all the things that you and I aspire 
To win from fate like some romantic tale 
Fresh from a dreamer's pen, seemed dull and frail 

Beside the beauty of a great desire. 

And I who met you weeping once among 
The stars, your ha'ir in darkened strands of light 

That round your face like gentle fingers clung . . . 
Paused for a single moment in the night 

To wonder if the songs that I had sung 

Found you with faith to dare the splendid flight. 



IV 



Your voice was like the echo of a song 
That floated to me from that wondrous hour. 
Out from the night from love's far lonely tower 

Beyond the pulse and beat of all the throng. 

Such dreams as these make singing spirits strong. 
And mighty gods grow conscious of their power, 
Or touch with glory some dejected flower 

Beneath the blind steps of a sightless wrong. 

Love comes in calico or satin gown 
Out of the night with dainty tripping feet 

And meets one in the shadows of the town 
Amid the tinsel music of the street. . . . 



55 



GESTURES IN IVORY 

I only know I dared not trample down 
A dream that was at once so strange and sweet. 



You came to me laden with gifts, my sweet. . . . 

The giving was good, so clean a thing 

That even I found virgin songs to sing 
That were not echoes of some dead defeat. 
Few loves there are that find us armed to meet 

The wasted spirit's roused desiring; 

Vain, vain were all the gifts that you might bring 
Save love with her own hands performed the feat. 

Ah! lay your cool white fingers at my face 
That I might touch the love that stirs me so. 

Hand in hand then let us fly through space, 
Look back on earth where people come and go, 

Remembering that we come of that same race 
Yet have created worlds they cannot know. 



VI 



Life's bleeding hands are at my throat. ... I see 
The heavy shadows gather in her eyes 
And all her arts, her horde of ready lies 

No longer thrill me with their subtlety. 
Though she still holds me I have shaken free 
The lust of bitterness and vain surprise; 
For every vision that within me dies 

I gain the strength of an eternal mystery. 

I've known a heart that does not dream of fear, 

A spirit-flaming with eternal light, 
Music that only the immortals hear 

Amid the open silences of night. . . . 
Past the tumult that fills the weary ear 

I know such beauty as may laugh at might. 



56 



GESTURES IN IVORY 



A dearth of things ... the things we hunger for; 

A few stray moments we have learned to trust ; 

The touch of hands that wither in the dust; 
Some trinkets added to our slender store; 
A lovely room somewhere on which the door 

Of time shuts in a sudden windy gust 

Of fury; little stabs of beauty; rust 
That gathers on the latchspring; dreams that soar. 

Now through the distant corners of the earth 
Life sends us different ways, through many lands, 

Yet where the voiceless dreamings shall have birth 
The urge and passion of your slender hands, 

The sharp, swift blaze of beauty . . . these are worth 
Love's silence if the spirit understands. 

VIII 

You say that I am selfish and intent 
Upon this shadow called myself, this thing 
Of flesh and bones that strains itself to sing 

Like one whose courage and desire are spent. 

Don't place your faith in this frail instrument 
When it is still, but when the wires ring 
With music bought of rich remembering. . . . 

That is its highest purpose and intent. 

How helpless is the flesh beneath the hands 
That strip it of its freedom for a song; 

One like yourself who ever understands 

Can pluck the right from out a world of wrong; 

Come, help me tighten up my armor bands 
So I may go to battle and be strong. 

IX 

The dusk is at the hour's end . . . one hour 
My love, to dream, to pause a while before 
This short, sweet evening close forevermore 



57 



GESTURES IN IVORY 

As petals close around a lovely flower. 

Let us retire to a lonely tower, 

Mount winding stairs and close and lock the door 
Forgetting for a moment that a war 

Slays like a monster with despotic power. 

With faces pressed against the windowpane 

We'll watch the flaming, golden bars 
Of this immortal daylight ebb and wane, 

Then as the darkness cloaks the bitter scars 
That give the shattered earth so deep a pain, 

We'll lose our souls among the distant stars. 



To hear your voice was like a distant sphere's 

Soft echo past the outer rims of day 

And all I had to tell you died away 
Amid the music which had filled my ears. 
Now every shadow near my spirit clears. 

This heart that life had moulded out of clay 

Is like an instrument on which you play 
The greatest songs of all the changing years. 

Then let us both remember that we dared 
To live what we had dreamed, to spend with ease 

Our hopes and fears and know that we have spared 
No hoarded wealth that Love might wish to seize, 

Believing that the ones who bravely bared 
Their secrets quicken all the mysteries. 



XI 



I dared not call this growing love of ours 
A singing imagery of human need 
Until I knew that it was neither greed, 

Nor idle hunger that the heart devours. 



58 



GESTURES IN IVORY 

Days come when all of beauty's red, red flowers 
Shall wither on the stem and turn to seed. . . . 
We have been mad with love yet dare we heed 

The thin, sharp voice that tells of dying powers? 

I know, I know that everything men say 
Conceals the lash, the sting, the fleshly halter; 

Yet love, those of us who must surely pay 
Are those that do not dream and always falter. 

Come let us see beyond a single day. 
And worship sin upon a scarlet altar. 



XII 



Beloved, how my heart cries out to you 
Like some poor penitent upon his knees 
Who seeks new visions of old mysteries, 

And thinks to raise his failing hopes anew. 

Alas, the treasures of the earth are few; 
Life is a wilderness wherefrom one sees 
The sunlight far above the close-grown trees, 

Wherein we feebly dream our swift days through. 

Behind our smiles we hide our tears, behind 
Our tears, our dreams . . . this much we own 

If one possesses the splendid gift to bind 
Unto the spirit by his strength alone 

That which he does not earn but lives to find 
By taking chances with a dim unknown. 



Now that we part let love saj'^ everything, 
Still all the troubled whispers and despair. 
We have possessed a dream . . . what do we care 

For any aftermath of questioning? 

Ah! let us join our frail, frail hands and sing . . . 
Illusions are but bubbles filled with air 



59 



GESTURES IN IVORY 

That burst like voiceless music when we dare 
To sound the depths of life's dull muttering. 

A.nd let these roses be our yesterdays, 
Each one a single, crimson flash of light. 

For love is always free, it only stays 
In all the speed and splendour of its flight 

With those who go upon their separate ways 
Along the hidden pathways of the night. 



60 



A SONG OF PATCHIN PLACE 

Out of the mists, a hand, a smile, 

Perhaps a friendly face 
That lures the fancy yet awhile 

To little Patchin Place. 

The roar of Harry Kemp's good laughter, 
Those dear, dear days of grace 

That fill the heart these long months after 
With thoughts of Patchin Place. 

The tiny rooms, the kitchenette, 

The screen that hid all trace 
Of our small dinner table set 

With style in Patchin Place. 

A poem sold, then much to eat, 

A bit of wine to chase 
Away the echoes of defeat 

With friends in Patchin Place. 

One sewing in the easy chair . . . 

All time cannot erase 
The picture of her sitting there 

In our own Patchin Place. 

The touch of youth . . . how one could sing 
When Winter's frowning face 

Broke forth in smiles as laughing Spring 
Came into Patchin Place. 



61 



UNIFORMS 

(For Margaret Sanger) 

Who shall sing war songs f 
Monotonous war songs? 
Are they not all alike? 



63 



UNIFORMS 



Soldiers, soldiers, thousands of soldiers 
Across the plain like stalks of grain, 
Soldiers, soldiers, thousands of soldiers. 
From out the door a stream of them pours 
Along the street their tramping feet; 
As a serpent's body the columns flow ; 
Soldiers, soldiers, thousands of soldiers. 
Brown clad soldiers, 
Guns on their shoulders, 
Soldiers, soldiers, thousands of soldiers. 
The wind dies down and the banners loop 
The lithe flagpoles and fold and droop, 
Soldiers, soldiers, thousands of soldiers. 

A sharp command and the columns stand, 
Another's heard and a column is stirred . . . 
The shufiiing feet and the drums that beat 
Make one remember that flesh is sweet. 
Soldiers, soldiers, thousands of soldiers 
Filling the empty length of street. 

Cantonments, shacks, 

Straight, stiflF backs. 

Muddy roads, 

And mules and loads; 

Bugles and rifles, 

A heat that stifles, 

Soldiers, soldiers, thousands of soldiers. 



63 



UNIFORMS 

Sweet, clean faces, 

Empty spaces 

Of dull and monotonous skies; 

Tired eyes, 

A sentry that grips 

His rifle, clinching childish lips ; 

Soldiers, soldiers, thousands of soldiers 

Drilling, drilling; 

Evenings that sway 

With sulky shadows at close of day. 

What will they do 

When the war is through, 

These soldiers, soldiers, thousands of soldiers? 

Weary forms 

In heaving swarms, 

Uphill and down 

The things in brown, 

And often after 

The shattered sound 

Of wasted laughter; 

The world that is bound 

By dreary nights 

When the silence bites 

Like a wound at the heart . . . 

Soldiers, soldiers, thousands of soldiers. 

What do they think of? 

Music and love, 

Of pleasure and pain, 

These soldiers, soldiers, thousands of soldiers, 

Dotting the plain? 

Flowers, flowers, thousands of flowers 
Crushed and trampled under foot; 
Blood that kills the broken root. 
Blood that dries on buried bones, 
Cities a maze of tumbling stones, 
Shattered forests and shattered towers. . . . 
Flowers, flowers, thousands of flowers. 



64 



UNIFORMS 



II 



Around the parade ground they go, 
Around and around and around 
Like flies in thick molasses 
Poured in a huge green saucer 
And stirred by a child's spoon. 
Dullness and darkness and death. . . . 

White faces that smile; 
Tall bodies ; 
Short bodies; 
Square bodies ; 
Round bodies ; 
Crooked bodies; 
Straight bodies; 
Bodies, bodies, bodies. 
Lumps of flesh moving automatically 
Like logs in a muddy stream, 
Crawling along at dusk 
Against the ground 

And disappearing sluggishly under open 
doorways. 

Uniforms gyrating idiotically; 

Rifles pirouetting; 

Commands dying on the still air; 

Red-eyed sergeants thundering. . . . 

Uniforms, uniforms, uniforms 

Running against the earth 

Queerly, 

Insanely. 

Madness, madness, madness. 



65 



UNIFORMS 

What is it all about? 

Say, 

Am I crazy, 

Are you? 

House of painted ugliness ; 

Stoves belching rotten odors ; 

Dead men wandering around against the sky, 

Men already marked, catalogued and filed 

away for slaughter. 
God ! how they long for it, too. 

No women, 

No children, 

No booze. . . . 

Just hell. 

A moral country behind them, refusing them 

comfort or understanding. 
Moral societies preaching to them. 
Cadaverous females looking at them through 

lorgnettes. 
Like wild birds on thin, long legs. 
Papers lecturing to them. 
Guns waiting to bark at them. 
Shouldn't they long for death? 

Uniforms, uniforms, uniforms 

Parading, drilling, marching. 

Queer arms that move sharply; 

Dead faces that frown; 

Legs jumping suddenly; 

Bodies slanting oddly . . . 

Around and around and around the parade 

they go 
Like flies in a big green saucer 
Filled with molasses 
And stirred by a child's spoon. 



66 



SINGING IN CAMP 

The blazing torches of the night ! 

Three thousand men singing 

"Katy, beautiful Katy." 

One's heart stands still at the volume of sound, 

The earth trembles under the feet, 

Can one ever forget? 

The hollow in the hill used as an amphitheatre? 

The faces rising in the faint light on three sides? 

Down in the middle, on a platform upon which leaps and 

jumps the lithe form of the leader, 
Swinging his arms and shouting : 
'*NoAv try it again." 
O ! blazing torches of the night ! 



67 



ON LEAVE 

Hushed is the heart! 

Hold me, O loved one, I go into the silence. . . . 

I go back where life is a thing of angles and cubes, 

I go back where the soul is barred up like a restless bird in 

a rusty cage, 
I go back where inspiration is looked upon as a disease; 

where the whispering tongues of feeling are frightened 

into silence. 
Grip me, O loved one . . . hushed is the heart. 
Never one of these uniforms but wishes it was over. 
Poor, sad, moving things that would be heroes . . . how can 

they speak? 

I live with them, eat with them, talk to them, but am as a 

stranger in a strange land. 
Orders are like whip strokes upon hurt eyes. 
Their language is of the earth. 
They speak a lewd, ominous tongue. 
Hushed is the heart 
In so great a solitude back there in camp! 



68 



BLEEDING HEART 

Bleeding heart 

O army of ours, great bleeding heart! 

Every soldier a drop of blood falling unheeded upon the 

ground, 
Every soldier a clot of blood congealing and hardening upon 

the ground. 

Bleeding heart, your stealing rhythm is the heavy tread of 
four million men vanishing into the East. . . . 

Rhythmical marching . . . rhythmical marching . . . sym- 
phonies of flesh! 



69 



THE MACHINE STOPS— NOVEMBER, 1918 

The machine stops with a grunt and a wheeze 

Like a clumsy giant resting from a hot race. 

An order has been issued 

From G. H. Q. 

"Cease firing at eleven A. M. !" 

* * ♦ * * * * 

The sky is leaden, 

Lying heavily over the earth like a tent 

Appearing to sag in the middle. 

The earth is exhausted. 

It has no more strength. 

Like a mother who has borne too many children, 

It is unshapely and uneven. 

The trees droop against a dull wind, 

Their limbs barren, 

******* 

Silence now ! 

The echoes hang disconsolately in the laps of the hills, 

Disappearing slowly. 

Thousands of faces come out of the mud, 

Shapes of things move down gullies and emerge into the 

desecrated day. 
The hour has come ... an armistice ! 
Those who have been driven into the slaughter house tremble 

like feverish patients, 
Rubbing filthy hands over their eyes, 
Shaking themselves. 
They start to cheer, 

The words catch in their throats in clots of saliva. 
Beyond, in the other lines, ghostly shapes protrude their 

heads. 
Wondering if a stray shot will pick them off. 
Four years ended in a moment. 



70 



THE MACHINE STOPS— NOVEMBER, 1918 

It cannot be, says a little knot of them, unstrapping their gas 

masks. 
To some it is like a dash of cold water, to others only a 

change to be regarded calmly. 
Around this particular group lie wrecks of wagons, artillery, 
horses, fences, factories, supplies, ammunition, bodies . . . 
A shell had exploded there not ten minutes before, 
Suddenly a bloody thing rises from the earth, 
A bloody, sodden thing, 
A hero ! 

His face is like overcooked liver, 
The eyes mashed like eggs over his cheeks, 
The mouth dripping. , , . 

He gets to his feet in a blind agony of desire. 
Echoes of sunlight still crash through his brain. 
One hand is like a bunch of red ribbons dangling at his 

side, • 

Somewhere on his head there might have been hair at one 

time, 
An ear has exploded and it blossoms like a strange flower at 

the edge of his cheek. 
The others see him, 
"God! look at that!" one shouts. 
All turn and stare. 
The last gift to Mars in a quiet sector, struggles forward, 

slipping, falling. . . . 
Someone starts to help him and is flung away, bloody from 

the contact. 
A new silence falls. 
The soldiers' mouths hang open, 
They stare like dirty children in the street. 
The tiling of red goes forward, tripping over empty shells, 
He drops finally into a shell hole. 
They see him no more. 
Then one of them shouts, 
Another follows : 



71 



THE MACHINE STOPS— NOVEMBER, 1918 

They dance, wave their hats, punch each other; crying, 

yelling, 
The field of honor . . . 
Blood finds voice . . . 
Hours later a little knot of haughty officers find them all 

crazy, 
Twenty raving maniacs 
Dancing around a muddy hole 
From which arises the bloated head of a dead man. 



72 



COMPENSATION 

He was only a dirty private whom the great high chiefs ig- 
nore. 

But to his wife and his fittle kids he was a mighty god of 
war. 



73 



LINES 

The field of honor? 

Who can tell 

The brave old story of how they fell? 



74 



STRAY LINES 

The eternal grind of the army- 
Is almost epic. 
There is much rhythm but no melody. 



75 



IMPRESSIONS 



Feathers of fancy 

Blown hither and there in a bleak night, 

Khaki colored feathers that are children of the wind. 

II 

Women of cool, white bodies that fill our hours 

Before we go, 

Remember this . . . 

When Death smiles over the trench top 

There in that glittering moment, 

They recall the glory of your breasts; 

The luxury of your hips; 

The imperishable languor of your eyes,^ 

The smooth touch of your hands upon their bodies. . . . 

A soldier at his death shall look back — everyone 

Upon some moment when a kind lady gave him of her beauty. 



Ill 



The old shrivelled beast of a woman stopped me, 

"Read this, my boy," 

It was a bit from the Bible 

Telling me to forgive sins. 

I thought of the bayonet practice when I had been told 

That it was either a case of get killed or kill. 

I almost laughed in her oily face 

As I pictured a bayonet being driven through my eyes 

And begging forgiveness. . . . 



76 



WOMEN 

The soldier in search of his love. 

But did one ever know the truth? 

The soldiers grow to look upon womenkind 

As the satisfier of his love. 

To us in the ranks it was like a wound upon our spirits. 

Though we knew nothing of it. 

In our discussions 

In our leaves, 

In our thoughts 

Woman grew to be the tawdry thing of passion. 

Dangling before our eyes like the jewel 

In a shop window. 

Which a poor man looks upon greedily. 

Shake your bones, old rotten moralists. 

This is true. 



77 



SOLDIER, SOLDIER 

Soldier, soldier, what have you seen? 

I have looked on fields once fresh and green 

Turned crimson in the burning sun, 

Turned crimson before they were bitterly won. 

Soldier, soldier, what did you learn? 

I have gathered fruit that I bled to earn; 

I have gathered fruit that was almost rotten. . . . 

Now I return, and am half forgotten. 



78 



THE GIFT OF SILENCE 

O! gift of silence. 

Will the vain tomorrow 

Fill me as of old 

With jaded promises of treasure ships, 

Adventure, hopes and high, swift faith? 

Again I have the madness of your lips. 

The touch of singing flesh. 

Dear God ! the gift of silence, 

When the soul lies dead and love departs 

How pitifully we play our parts. 

The act is over and the music stops. 
Yet when the house is closed 
The last spectator gone, 
We stand there in the darkness. 
All alone with memory. . . . 
Dear God ! the gift of silence. . . . 



79 



PICTURES IN GRAY 

Saluting, saluting, saluting . . . 

The uniforms go by 

In twos, 

In threes. 

In fours. 

In countless knots 

Until the mass becomes a blur within the eyes. 

And arms move automatically with machine-like clicks. 

The food piled on the tables. 

Lines waiting to gobble it down 

Like snakes curled around the buildings. 

Brown snakes that disolve at will into curious shapes. 

Gray, rain-swept barracks. 

Dust and clamor . . . 

At night to waken and hear the sentry's sharp, swift challenge. 

The dawn. 

The ever present dawn 

Pouring like a muddy fluid 'round the camp. 

Into every crevice and cranny. 

The dawn 

Seeping into the eyes like poison. 

The trucks grinding here and there. 

Continued streams of trucks 

With uniforms hanging to the steering gears ; 

Swearing things that peer out of the dirt-rimmed eyes at 

you as they pass. 
Motorcycles twisting, in and out. 
The increasing volume of traffic. 
Raucous horns blowing. 



80 



PICTURES IN GRAY 

Saluting, saluting, saluting . . . 

The clamor of the heart is gone. 

And life stands still like a diseased pool 

In the everglades. . . . 



81 



A LAMENT 

Ah: now I know 

How life may hurt one so 

That every happiness 

But crumbles into dust before one's eyes, 

Crumbles and dies. 

Dear Christ : they are so pitiful 

These lonely thousands, 

Herded like a lot of sheep. 

With toil and pain and lack of sleep, 

With naught of sympath}^ 

Or thanks, or joy at what should be 

Each individual liberty. 

"There goes a soldier guy" 

A jaded voice is speaking from a porch 

As some of us go by. 

Surrounded by their families, their friends, 

And sleeping in clean, sweet beds. 

And we . . . 

Oh : well, there goes another uniform 

They might have yelled at us. 

Then and then, I must remember this, 

Some of us die. . . . 



H^ 



DUST 

These silent soldiers ... 

The millions, millions, millions of them. 

Pouring down these barren streets, 

Peeping out of windows, 

Singing, swearing, toiling, . . . 

Millions, millions. 



83 



FURLOUGHS 

An hour here, an hour there, 

"How is the camp?" 

"What is your rank?" 

"How often do they grant you leave?" 

"Why don't they send you to France?" 

And on and on the rich monotony of words and gestures. 

A show, perhaps, 

A ride in a taxi with some stray girl, 

Her perfumed arms around your neck, 

Rouged lips against your own. 

Her lithe, frail body lying in your arms. . . . 

Back to camp 

The line of tents. 

The non-coms swearing at the drill, 

The interminable drill. . . . 

Poor uniforms, hustled on by the unseen hands. 

What can they care? They are but children of your dreams. 

Little it is that makes them happy. 

They are yours. . . . 

Down in the dust we long for fundamentals, uniforms, 

What use have we for fine words or clothes? 

We want our women. . . . 

We want our liquors, our dances. 

Our hours without restriction. 

Do not bother us, moralists. 

Stop your rotten organizations from following us, 

Your filthy leagues for the protection of our morals. 



84 



FURLOUGHS 

What need have we of morals? 

We laugh at you, 

We curse you, 

We spit at you. . . . 

The city streets are crowded with uniforms in twos, threes, 

fours. 
Searching for pleasure. 
What is their pleasure? 

The soul shrivels up like a leaf and blows away in the night. 
They cheer. . . . 
The silence swallows their retreating forms. 



85 



THOUGHTS OF A UNIFORM 

So this is the end . . . this endless camp. 
This muddy, narrow street. 
This little room, this faint, small lamp, 
The sound of endless feet? 

I wonder now that men have laughter, 
Beauty and desire . . . 
Nothing now and nothing after, 
Mere cattle in the mire. 

Honor and glory . . . immortal things . , . 
But give us something more . . . 
They crush us under the feet of kings. . . . 
What are we fighting for? 



86 



SONG 

When I see lines of soldiers marching by 
I feel my throat catch short and choke — 

Why must we waste our flesh ? O ! let us die, 
We checkers in this titan's joke. 

My friends — the very ones the darkness swallowed 
On swift grey ships — they die. Which one 

Of all the murdering gods that each have followed 
Conceived this game so ably done? 

My friends, my friends, they go in splendid ships 

Fed like the coal into a fire . . . 
But I recall their laughing eyes, their lips, 

Their beauty and their great desire. 

Pull up the guns . . . damn all you dirty dogs. 

Climb up that trench . . . O ! Look, he fell : 
They lie around us now ITke fallen logs . . . 

You rotters, move ... O ! go to hell. 



87 



RIVERS OF LAUGHTER 

Death is in their march . . . 
There is the odor of lilies . . . 
Against the pale sky 
The banners droop 
Silently. . . . 

The boys pass in fours, 

Their white faces 

Agloom with an agony of ignorance, 

Their slim hands gripping the heavy rifles, 

Their straight legs moving in precise rhythm. 

Columns go by; 

Columns of dust-covered boys ; 

Columns of humans. . . . 

Beside me a weak-kneed civilian suddenly cheers, throwing 

his hat in the air. 
The column of uniforms has stirred some secret and insistent 

impulse in his pitiful soul. 

One face turns from the columns. . . . 

Christ ! It smiles a weary smile, 

The civilian claps me on the back, 

His ugly, weak countenance bathed in a greasy smile, 

"I wish I could go." 

I move away. 

My uniform is burning into my back 

Like a sheet of flame. 

I am brought sharply to my senses 

By a high officer 

Who strides by. 



88 



RIVERS OF LAUGHTER 

Slapping his puttees with a riding crop. 

I clap my heels together. 

I salute, 

The answer is a frown and quick hand to the brim of his hat. 

I move sluggishly on through the mob. 

Where is my mind? 
I ponder. 

I gaze down at myself. 
I cannot recognize what I see. 

It is not myself who salutes, salutes, salutes, salutes. 
I smile wonderingly, willing to see the point of the joke, but 
it seems hard. 

I could swear that around me there are rivers of laughter 
pouring in mad torrents over unseen rocks. 

I could swear that I stand alone 
Upon the sharp edges of a cliff, 
Gazing into space. 

There is a horror in the hour, 
A dumb appeal from my soul 
Remaining unanswered in all this 
Trim uniform. 

I can feel the frail hands of my spirit 
Letting go of the walls of my flesh ; 
They slip down the smooth walls of my body. 
Disappearing within the deep wells 
Around my feet. 

I clutch at those dear hands, 

We meet for a moment, a dear moment. 

And they are gone. 

I salute again. 

There is a chorus of salutes from the obedients who pass me. 

I go on. . . . 

Rivers of laughter, Christ ! Rivers of laughter. 



89 



A LETTER 

Dear one, life lays its heavy, brutal hands 

Upon the spirit, and in other lands 

Men die for us . . . dear men who might have known 

New wonders and have lived to earn the touch 

Of lovely women. They have given much. 

What is there now? Sweet Christ, our splendid trust 

Lies trampled underfoot in crimson dust. 

I wonder now that song and love and art 

Have ever played their vain, unheeded part 

When mankind fills the beauty of the sky 

With screams of wounded men who cannot die, 

With endless cannon roar, with carnal yells, 

And turns France into a thousand livid hells . . . 

So much has life to pride existence for — 

Lust, greed, disease and wounds of war. 

Men go for us . . . into the dusk they sweep 

Line after line. They shall not know of sleep, 

Of easy food, of homely kindliness. 

Sleep waits for them but sleep of such excess 

That men no longer weary of tomorrow. 

Food may be theirs . . . food of such withering sorrow 

That systems die in spite of souls that fight 

In broken bodies through that yelling night. 

And kindliness? Ah yes, the bayonet 

Drawn forth from flesh with both hands wringing wet, 

And memories of shrieks that follow after ; 

The aching back, the idiotic laughter 

Of some poor fool left in the mud to die. 

Shall we now stand aside and question why? 



90 



THE PRIZEFIGHT 

Ropes hitting staring eyes, 
Noise crashing against noise, 
Throats open — red. 
Beating hands. 

Flesh stripped to waists, 
Beasts filling two chairs, 
Towels waving, 

Oily seconds arguing excitedly. 
The gong. 

Flesh smacking upon flesh. 

New blood. 

Red noses. 

Blue-rimmed eyeballs. 

Shuffling feet tangled in the sight. 

Heavy hands beating, endlessly beating. 

Clinching, 

Referee's lowered face like a lynx, watch- 
ing, self-conscious, arbitrary. 

Rounds passing, 

Gongs sounding, 

Lights blinding, 

Weary muscles of tlie face expanding, con- 
tracting, 

Twitching lips. 

Red faces. 

Black howling, 

Green yelling. . . . 

Swinging, turning, toppling, twisting, 

Gray contortions of forms. 



91 



THE PRIZEFIGHT 

Smack ! 

Slump f I 

Ropes hitting against staring eyes, 

Noise crashing against noise. 

Throats open — red. 

Beating hands. 

Sweat and blood. 

Referee swinging dizzily against the air. 

Broken clinch. 

Monotonous blow upon blow. 

Bloody hand smearing blood upon shining 

shoulders. 
Weariness of vision. 

A sudden turn. 
Blows upon blows. 
Another turn. 
The gong! 



92 



A LETTER WRITTEN FROM A FORT IN THE 
GREAT WAR 

You'd smile these days if you knew how I clung 
To shreds of things — each wire is unstrung 
That once I played upon with dreaming ease, 
And I who wondered at life's mysteries 
Have found the simplest brings me to my knees. 
So you might smile and doubtless touch my face 
With those cool hands that are so full of grace, 
Speaking softly as you often do : 
"Forget them 'till this bitter work is through. 
One might remember far too much, or think 
Too frequently of those upon the brink 
Of darkness in a wasted, broken land. . . ." 
Thus, smiling, you would lay a slender hand 
Upon my mouth, demanding silence . . . yet 
How can one think of things and then forget? 

There is that room above the lighted street, 

I would obey you for our love is sweet 

And clinging bodies fill the soul entire. 

But here amid these men, all our desire 

Is like a dream, another shadow thing 

Bought of an hour of remembering. 

The bitter cold, the sentries in the night, 

The flapping tent, the oil or candle light. 

The olive drab, the shining ba5^onet . . . 

Sweet Christ, they never let us fools forget ! 

So would you smile if you could see me here 

On duty with the others, and one glove 

Removed that I might write you of my love. 

The bared hand nearly frozen . . . would you know 

Me wrapped and bound and cloaked and bundled so. 

Out here in camp? 



93 



A LETTER WRITTEN FROM A FORT 

Before, I dared not guess 
That I should cling some day to happiness 
Somewhat as children hold to broken toys. 
Ah! life takes joy in breaking down the poise 
That men built up in leisure ... in the way 
That night comes down each evening on the day. 

And smiling you would lift your eyes and speak 
Such healing things as make the spirit meek 
When flooded with a dream that stirs and grips, 
And end my doubts by giving me your lips. 

Too bitterly, perhaps, these caged and chained 
Young soldiers think of battles to be gained 
In sacrifice. Their faces harden quick; 
Some change in man's good fortune does the trick. 

Here as I sit beside the floor, they pass, 
A herded host of uniforms, a mass 
Of flesh that waits its officers' commands, 
A maze of lips and eyes and arms and hands, 
Bent down before the driving wind and snow. . . . 
Beside that door I watch the columns go 
Into the dusk. A bugle sounds; a shout 
Is heard and then a single light shines out 
Within the barracks ; sentries take their posts 
And hooded shapes move in the night like ghosts. 
So does the darkness cloak our camp like death 
Who knows already when each last sweet breath 
Shall empty from their lungs in some near hour. 
Strange does it seem to live beneath that power 
Night and day, imprisoned here behind 
These mighty guns. These are the ties that bind 
Us in our agony against all pain. 
What have we lost, what may we hope to gain? 
Week after week the dull machine renews 
Its fiendish grip and tightens down the screws. 



94 



A LETTER WRITTEN FROM A FORT 

That which we dreamed and struggled for lies dead, 

A song unsung, and in its place instead 

We uniforms have iron discipline, 

A laugh that dies behind a feeble grin, 

The sentry duty in the bitter cold. . . . 

Our hearts are strangled, they are growing old. 

Thus, all that you have done for me but means 
That one in all this host of grim machines 
Knows better than he ever has before 
How wealth that comes too late finds us grown poor 
Beyond the aid of men and women. 

And I who take you to these splendid heights 
Have known the darkness of the darkest nights. 
Have touched the fringes of the mysteries 
That might have brought you broken to your knees. 
I feel the touch of you, and through that length 
Of space we travel all your flaming strength 
Uplifts me like the wonder of a song. 
Uplifts me swiftly, leaves me free and strong. 
Therefore, I know that I must pay for you. 
For every daring thing that we might do. 
I do not dread the cost — or any debt — 
But woman's kindness makes a man forget 
His faith, his dreams, and drown in his desire 
Her loveliness, her beauty and her fire. 

Have you dared plunge beyond your glorified power, 
And spent your madness in a single hour? 
You know what life expects, what life demands. 
Yet give to me the mercy of your hands. 
Miladi, come with me across the skies, 
The moment lives that with to-morrow dies. 
Be sure that what we find upon our way 
The gods do not so freely give away 



95 



A LETTER WRITTEN FROM A FORT 

That you might pass them by, or lightly toss 
Them forth— the coming hour when your loss 
Is keenest, when the dusk is near, shall be 
Naught but a thin, sharp voice of memory. 



96 



THE GREAT LESSON 

I have learned the great lesson astounding to each in his turn. 

Life is not a thing to turn idly about in one's hands, 

To mold like putty, 

But something hard as rocks through which one has to force 

his way, 
Maddened by a dream. 



97 



IMPRESSIONS 

I sat in the theatre. 

The audience grew wild over the two farmers 
In the motion pictures 

Who came to the city and made silly blunders before the ser- 
vants. 

Suddenly I felt a great disgust. 

You cads, I said, secretly all of you adore wealth. 

You like superficial things instinctively. 

You are all socialists 

When you are without money. 

Sneaks while you are trying to get away. 

Dirty dogs when you get it. 

At least the men in the army are not sneaks and dirty dogs. 

They are real and true. 



98 



TO THE PARLOR POETS OF AMERICA IN MEMORY 
OF ALAN SEEGER 

Not one of you have done so big a thing, 
Nor risked so much one despairing toss, 
For how could you have known the bitter loss 

That fills the spirit of a broken king? 

Have one of you possessed the gift to sing, 
Tossed all your hopes away as so much dross, 
And like a Christ upon a flaming cross 

Looked on beyond the rabble's muttering? 

Down in the gutters of the mind he heard 
The endless marching of determined men, 

The high-flung battle cry, the time-worn word 
That stills the burning heartache now as then, 

And by a deathless myth the heart v/as stirred 

■ That hopes to never lift its voice again. 



99 



AT PARTING 

The end of the world has come, 

The very lips of Christ 
Are sudden stricken dumb 

For all the sacrificed. 

And where is beauty now, 
And love and man's desire? 

Prepare your lover now 
For his baptism of fire. 

Fold him to your breast, 
God be generous with power ; 

You shall have the rest, 
This is her last, swift hour. 

Soon shall your hungry soul 

Feed on a scarlet lust 
While the blinded legions roll 

Like serpents through the dust. 

So hold your final tryst, 
God, be generous, thou . . . 

These are their hps. They've kissed! 
Oh let them be happy now. 



100 



MAJOR RAOUL LUFBERY 

Fallen, fallen, mighty eagle, 
After eighteen victories. 

Buried, buried, mighty eagle, 
After eighteen victories. 

Slow . . . 
They go . . . 
The funeral . . . 
The heavy pall . . . 
Bowed head . . . 
The dead . . . 
Slow . . . 
They go . . . 
The funeral . . . 
Bowed head . . . 
The dead. . . . 

Somewhere at home 

The papers reach 

One's eyes. 

The headlines screech 

At her their swift surprise 

Of glory . . . 

The same, old story. 

Slow . . . 
They go . . . 
The funeral. . . . 

A brief, grim span 
Of golden fame, 
But like a man 
He won his name 



101 



MAJOR RAOUL LUFBERY 

For all the years, 

And yet her tears 

Are not for honor and for those 

Who wait the conquest of the foes, 

But only for him, 

For him ! 

Oh Christ, 

For him, 

One of the sacrificed! 

Slow . . . 
They go . . . 
The funeral. . . . 



103 



THE UNSPEAKABLE 

The unspeakable! 

Barred from their women, alone with their dreams, apart 
from their friends . . , 

Who shall blame them, the poor guardhouse weaklings for 
practices unspeakable? 

Who shall tell of battles in the darkness, solitary confine- 
ments on bread and water? 

Shall we know of their insane, the agony of their hearts? 

Shall I tell of those morally degraded ones? . . . 

Shall I tell of their language, their filth? 

The flesh rots on our bones, we soldiers . . . the flesh rots 
on our bones and is evil in our nostrils. 



103 



GUARDHOUSE! 

The sentry paces to and fro, 

A few dirty soldiers lounge around the doorway. 

A hot afternoon. 

Suddenly the silence is split in twain by the cry: 

"Corporal of the Guard, two prisoners." 

"Advance, two prisoners." 

The sentry marches the lounging figures straight up to the 
doorway, 

Two dirty, weary-looking things that have been broken by 
the blind system. 

It rushes over one swiftly, the thought, that without a uni- 
form a soldier does not exist. 

What does a uniform conceal? 

Filthy underwear, perhaps, 

A broken heart, 

A withered spirit . . . 

The prisoners slouch forward and disappear into the reeking 
interior of the guardhouse, 

Again the thought . . . 

What practices are countenanced there? 

One remembers the incidents of a soldier pouring slime in an- 
other soldier's ear . . . the brutal beating of one prisoner 
by a crazed man. . . . 

The guardhouse. 

The prison. . . . 



104 



GASSED 

A strip of pain across the lips. 

Following this the tearing down by minute hands each muscle 

of the throat; tearing each slowly to accentuate the pain. 
The tongue, looping back, gives sudden jerks, choking off the 

air. 
The eyes leaping forward in hot agony as though knowing 

what would follow, 
The lungs filling with the gas in inexorable certitude that 

drives one mad and leaves one conscious of madness, 
The popping of blood vessels in the brain like tiny fire- 
crackers. 
The collar gathering about the throat as might a burning 

necklace. 
The red-hot fingers clutching at the air foolishly . . . almost 

funny to one who does not know, 
Jumping around upon the earth. 
The flagellation of the heart under lashes of pain that sweep 

over it regularly. 
The gathering of acute misery in unexplored places, then the 

rush of fire through the lungs again. . . . 
They pick up the rotten flesh after awhile and toss it in a 

ditch. 
Poor flesh. . . . 



105 



COMMANDS 

These commands are endless in their monotony. 

There is a fatality about the word of a superior that kills the 

heart. 
Under each command there is a slender sword in a sheath, 
Ready to be drawn in an instant. 

The whole system is behind the drawing of that sword, 
Disobey and a myriad unseen murderers are upon you out 

of the darkness. 
You obey, clapping your heels together. 
You feel the whole army on your back 
Like the old man of the sea. 



106 



DISCHARGED 

The order has come. 

Release them : commands the impersonal, far-off, powerful, 

despotic War Department. 
Send back the numbers, the inhabitants of uniforms, 
The blind followers of commands. 
We have finished with them. 

Before my vision there is the picture of huge warehouses 
Packed with millions of khaki blouses and breeches 
Each with the memory of its one-time occupant. 
It would not surprise me if these uniforms were to rise some 

cold morning at the echo of reveille, 
To march forth in grim parade, 
The empty uniforms flapping in the wind. . . . 
At the head of the column the figure of some old 
General, rotten with age. 
Snarling out his commands like flashes 
Of a nasty whip. 

* * if * * t * 

Uniforms, uniforms, uniforms that have reduced us to the 

dead 
Level of the earth, 
Brown like the loam, 
Impersonal like the soil. 



107 



RETURNING UNIFORMS 

Shaken and torn they return 

To the barren arms of love, 

Like lost children 

Adopted by strange parents 

From institutions. 

The familiar corners have grown old, 

The drug store has changed hands, 

A new face appears at the movie window, 

Boys have grown to manhood. 

Exotic are the changes to the returning uniform, 

He finds himself dissatisfied with his rebirth. 

Unhappy in his thoughts ; 

Disgusted with old visions ; 

An alien in an alien land. 

Committees meet him, 

Signs flare up out of innocent windows : 

"Welcome Home." 
Old women stop him on the street 
Asking endless questions 
With teethless mouths. 

Wounded ones find it more and more lonely as glory dims ; 
Democracies having no thankfulness, they soon neglect their 

heroes. 
The battlefields become anecdotes. 
The monotony of camp life fades. 
Old uniforms start writing memoirs. 
Youths are absorbed into factories. 
Youths marrying and settling down into grooves. 
Myths grow from rumors, 

The machinery of memory creating dull autobiographies, 
Histories waste time in weary searches for the "truth," 
Producing tedious books. 



108 



RETURNING UNIFORMS 

Museums are built containing specimens of bloody might 

And subterfuge. 

Christianity hastens to adopt a new war in its defense. 

Vile ministers use it as a text, 

Emotion that colored the air like poison, dies out, 

Perpetuation of ignorance; 

Perpetuation of greed and slavery; 

Perpetuation of lust and' crime; 

Perpetuation of destruction of beauty . . . 

Death and death and death ! 

^ ***** * 

The dust is whirling, 

The dancers can be seen moving in quick circles, 

Frantic with passion. 

Priests pass before high altars of gold and silver, 

Swinging censors, chanting hymns of hatred, 

Before them kneel the millions of worshippers of color and 

sound, 
The organs flare up and die in vast echoes, 
The kings come forth in grim array. 

The old ideals are bolstered up by false standards and desire. 
Naked women gyrate lewdly for the kings, 
The whole machine may be heard creaking if you listen 

closely, 
It is getting old. 

But the masters are repairing, oiling, and feeding it carefully. 
Patching up broken parts, driving the stokers to pile on more 

coal with flaming whips and foul curses. 
Money is scattered broadcast while the cattle fight for it, 
Dust whirling in the distant places 

Wherein the dancers twist and turn. 

******* 

Returning uniforms, do you see all this? 

Do you know about it? 

The night is upon us, 

The stars are here. 

God laughs and the ugly mechanism grinds on. 



109 



MEMORIES 

To-day I am granted the honorable discharge from the same 
cold hands that accepted me for enlistment as a buck 
private in March, 1917 ; 

The same hands that denied my going overseas ; 

That gave me a number. 

The memory comes back of the night I enlisted, Arthur 

Wilson and myself, comrades in arms. 
For seven years! 
A mere strip of paper. 
Then they tagged us, labelled us, uniformed us and set us 

adrift in the growing brown stream. 

Then there comes to me the night of leave . . . 

The short, swift spasms of freedom in the arms of women, 

in drunken riots, in sodden places, 
Here and there a golden moment that only hid in the dark 

pools about my feet. 

Uniforms, uniforms, flapping grotesquely in my memory 
Like washing on a line. 



110 



THE WIDE ROAD 

(For Merle Hersey) 

FOREWORD 

They say I scorn the tender things, 
The loveliest faces, the barren hours, 
The charm of virtue's maunderings 
And toss aside earth's sweetest flowers. 
And why do this, they ask? 
Why set the spirit to a task? 

Out of the silence of years of pain 

I am a voice that comes again, 

That comes again and yet again 

With the stored-up strength of many men. 

Generations who shall only be 

Seeds that flower for my eternity. 

The very songs that I have sung, 
The very words choked in my breast. 
Shall mean to me one single thing, 
One splendid thing, one simple thing . . . 
Within man's heart a new unrest. 

Then let my deeds be dreams. 
And when men battle for the thing that seems 
Most hopeless and crowded with despair 
God grant that my poor strength will place 
me there. 



Ill 



BEFORE THE HOUR OF NOON 

Preamble 



Come Friend, Artist, Creator, too long have you been led 
through the sunlight ; 

Go with me into the dusk of the world, into the shadows ; 

Grow strong with a faith that is warm, not stagnant with time ; 

Believe in the horror of life, trust in the brutality of things. 

You have been fed upon pretty pictures, religious rot and 
human idleness of will. 

You weary, I know; you hunger for food that a man might 
eat, for things that the strong might desire. 

Like thunder I come to you from a clear sky, and with light- 
ning flash through the heavens. 

Quivering with unrest I unfold the secrets crowded in the 
darkness, secrets that die of loneliness, 

And you who have been a stranger are no longer so ; we have 
become brothers of the flesh. 

I do not take your hand (it seems too useless) I look into 
your eyes for strength, saying, "Have you faith, slave?" 

Aye, you have been a slave to a thousand decayed laws, morals 
and silly conventions. 

Come, rise and throw from your shoulders the chains ; grow 
lean with reasoning, weary from dreaming. 

Walk when you might have ridden, go hungry when you might 
have eaten . , . and for all this I am bearing my stag- 
nancies. 

II 

I twist into hideous shapes all that I love in order that I may 
see it with eyes of hatred ; 



112 



BEFORE THE HOUR OF NOON 

I distrust my friends and clasp hands only with darkness and 

solitude ; 
I grow accustomed to myself ; 
I do not wax silly over a flower ; 
I do not roam in the country and seem content to call things 

by scientific names ; rather, say I, go forth into the city 

and study the human heart; 
I do not tread the highway to get somewhere, I go there to 

listen ; 
I do not pluck a rose from the bush and lose myself in its 

fragrance; I look beyond it and enjoy the hidden passion 

in a woman's eyes (there lieth all the fragrance of a 

world of roses), 
I do not puff up with glory at the past, or the future; I 

watch the present and never tire of it ; 
I do not talk of the innate goodness in humanity, I see too 

much evil, too much filth about me ; 
I do not leave the church with a hypocritical smile wrinkling 

my lips, for I know that around the corner 
I may come upon a man beating his horse without mercy; 
I do not drive forth the woman who loved too well and who 

holds the fruit of it to her breast, rather do I wish to 

embrace her and know more of her ; 
I do not work to pass laws, nor deliver judgements on those 

things lying between men ... I am human ; 
I do not cut down the fruitless bough from the Tree of Life, 

I prop it up and give it air and light ; 
I do not spurn with the foot, nor scorn anything except 

hypocrites ; 
I do not trust anything in life, nor believe in anything, nor 

consort with anything too long . . . my heart is my only 

friend ; 
I do not place faith in law, or custom, or religion, or hu- 
manity ; 
I am no believer in a hereafter, or before, or in any form of 

optimistic outlooks; I want a swinging, courageous pes- 
simism, a faith in self and a soul filled with silence; 
I see no reason to trust one's relations, or acquaintances, or 

rulers . . . are they not forced upon us? 

113 



BEFORE THE HOUR OF NOON 

I see no reason to have acquaintances; 

I am no friend of the poor, or the wealthy ... I distrust 
them , . . they are classes, but I do love the companion- 
ship of individuals, companionship of only heart and 
mind ; 

And in all this I gather but one flower from the gardens, 

Truth naked and unashamed ... be true to yourself, be 
individual ! 

in 

Create, O you artists, be alive for that one thing and none 

other. 
Go forth into the highways, trusting none, loving but your 

art, battling against favor and tradition. 
Wait at the crossways and learn life in the darkest corners. 
Love women when your strength is in your hands, not theirs ; 

love the fire but do not carry it home with you. 
Be strong with the strong so that you may know how to be 

feeble with the feeble. 
Ignore criticism of the intellectuals, seek only inspiration . . . 

your work will match your dreams. 
Be earnest, be sorrowful, build up from the heart, not from 

the brain. 
Go forth, Creator, love the beautiful where'er it be; dwell 

in solitude and be ready with gifts to surprise the world. 
With all thy strength distrust any voice that is soothing ; 
Sit on the benches in the parks, in the theatres be attentive, 

but reserve your enthusiasm and energy for your work. 
Have children in passion, have the love of at least one 

woman . . . these are but the fingerprints in the sand. 
Be calm in the twilight, but alwaj^s remain ready to grow 

tempestuous at a breath. 
Never leave off dreaming (it is this that separates you from 

the rest of the earth) ; do not get too close to life or you 

are liable to lose the perspective; be distant, have many 

enemies, and be in deadly fear of losing the gifts so mys- 
teriously given you. 
Come with me. Brother, let us go into the darkness. 



114 



THE HEIGHTS OF LIFE 



And who shall tell of inspiration? Who shall make laws to 

govern so divine a gift? 
From the whispering of the winds; the tinkle of water over 
cool stones, the voices of children at play; the stillness 
of twilight; the passion in a woman's heart; the roar of 
the multitude at play or in anger; the calm following 
death ; the flush of dawn ; the roar of traffic upon the 
street; the cry of the new-born child; the breath of 
earth . . . from these and a hundred manifestations come 
the wine of inspiration, now pouring like a river madly 
through the soul, now like a stream trickling down a 
mountainside, and again shut off completely. 

And you, O Creator, shall live, suffer, grow wise and be 
made to work unendingly all for this ... it is the main- 
spring of your existence; no jeweller can replace it; 
tamper with it and you are lost. 

Worship it as you would your God, but let it seek you, for 
being sought it might utterly disappear. 

Lay down everything when it comes and tremble like a child 
with the joy of it. 

Mysterious hands have placed it in yours ; cherish it as you 
would some beautiful memory grown mellow in your 
heart. 

Battle for it, wait in the silence of the night and in the midst 
of the clangor of cities. 

Handle it at times as you would a bubble glittering with light 
and color, for it might burst. 

Give up all that you possess if need be, to own it. 

Forsake companionship for its pleasure and hearken not to 
mankind concerning its mysteries. 



115 



THE HEIGHTS OF LIFE 

It offers no explanation, demands none, being an elemental 

force knowing no master. 
Remember hourly that you are but its slave to be crushed or 

made stronger at its lordly will. 
Be often fearless with it and play with it as you would with 

lightning were you some god ; it may kill you but you 

will die with the dream of dreams burning in your heart, 

too happy to live. 
Let it be your mistress, your passionate lover, now spiritual. 

now fleshly. 
Drag it not into byways, nor allow it to consort with hypo- 
crites and unbelievers ; it will perish at the friendship of 

Untruth. 
Carry it not with j^ou into churches and other meeting places 

of the people. 
But what it produced in you may be transfused into the music 

of art and given freely to the world, for indeed all that 

shall be asked of you is to give freely and request nothing. 
Seek not to know from whence it came ; it is the bulwark of 

your strength, the line dividing you from the rest of the 

earth, and it may fade at the nod of a head. 
It may speak from the mouths of youths or old men, old 

women or young women. 
If you have been chosen regard yourself as consecrated to an 

ideal so much higher than yourself that you must spend 

a lifetime endeavoring to reach its level ; your failure 

will be a sign of your success. 
Only fools think they have succeeded in reaching the end ; 

the creative mind never reaches that point where it can 

say, "Lo, I have attained success." 



116 



THE HEIGHTS OF LIFE 



Inspiration may lurk in the darkness, it may shine in the sun. 
It may hover on the heavy lips of the degraded and fallen, or 

transfigure the soul of a king! 
It may catch in the throat of an infant, or strengthen the 

hand of a warrior. 
It may color a landscape, or raise a passion to the dignity of 

an historic episode. 
It may darken the portal of a dreamer, or enrich the wealthy. 
It may come forth arrayed in silks and satins, or it may come 

naked or clothed in rags. 
It may conceal itself in the shadows, or stride forth un- 
daunted. 
It may come from the outermost edges of the earth, the least 

frequented of lands, the desert or the city. . . . 
But it comes only to the chosen even though it linger but a 

moment like the touch of a light wind against the cheek. 
But ever does it come alone, sweeping like a hurricane 

through the hidden channels of the heart though but for 

a fleeting second. 
It feeds upon silence and the taste of tears, upon lust and 

purity; it knows no set hour of coming or departure; it 

takes all, demanding entire service, and flees like a song, 

leaving only an echo. 
Cherish it, O you Creator, God-bequeathed one, dust of the 

earth; cherish this gift as you would your life! 



117 



LIGHT AND DARKNESS 

Heed not the voice of the scholar grown rusty in the library, 

nor the scorn of the intellectual, nor the hatred of the 

mob because of your disregard for their idiotic conven- 
tions. 
Go not to the feet of the wise men for wisdom, they speak 

through the mists of the ages and dimmed enthusiasm. 

Too many perished dreams crumble in their souls. 
Linger not at the doorways of institutions and schools for 

the one thing you must insist upon is individualism. 
Be lonely, be yourself. 
Waste not your powers in idle conversation with those in 

whom you can have no interest; loiter not in the market 

places except to buy. 
Pay no attention to the cries of the people and their rulers, 

go the way your desires point and remember that the 

heart wants only what it can feed upon. 
Take not your work to the critics, nor listen to their speeches 

from the high places ; they would kill your inspiration. 
Be ever on your guard against the companionship of those 

unable to express themselves; consort only with your 

kind and little with them. 
Offer only what you create ; it will be received without thanks, 

nay, often scorned or neglected; the world bites the hand 

that feeds it. Be content, therefore, only with creating 

and have no hope of reward. 
Beware of a friend's praise or criticism, it is like a woman's 

smile ... it may weaken you. 
Reserve your best thought for future work, let nothing go 

forth that has not been studied from every angle. 
For every critical word against you will be found one in your 

favor even though it comes from the ends of the earth. 



118 



LIGHT AND DARKNESS 

Your work, small in the scale of things as it may seem, is 
like a pebble dropped in the quiet pool of life ; its effects 
will be felt at the outermost edges. 

If your work is sincere and a production of inspiration, no 
ill-will nor neglect can destroy it. 

All that you produce is permanent . . . once given to the 
world, all the cries, all the sneers, and the thunderstorms 
of a maddened crowd cannot touch it. 

Beware of standards, creeds and customs, they are the execu- 
tioners of art. 



119 



THE RIPENING FRUIT 
I 

Rest content with certain ideas and their strength and ex- 
pansion. 

Ideas we love, we frequent. 

Spurn absolutely any atlempt at reasoning over ideals ; let 
your inspiration decide. Trust in it when everything else 
fails you. 

Be much alone with your ideas, think upon them, but remem- 
ber always that you have little time to waste ; you are 
the chosen one, the servant of a vast force, yet you must 
reason and be confident. 

Be afraid of the ideas going to seed in the multitude and in 
the hearts of the intellectuals. 

n 

You are the law giver, the bringer of dreams to a starving 
world that knows it not. 

You are the freshener of streams, the thorn in the flesh, the 
unrest in men's hearts. 

Your ideas should be all-comprehending, disdaining com- 
promise and fresh from the companionship of the gods. 

You are of the true aristocracy, the aristocrary of mind. 

In you center a thousand whirlpools of desire and you must 
never rest content ; in calmness you will find the fruits of 
death grown easy to eat. Seek the battle and carry the 
standard. 

If you grow weary of j'ourself it is a sign you are in need of 
rest, not content. 

Return often to the hills and dream and grow inspired. 

In the cities become lean with thought and work. 

Forget the flesh, it is only a cloak thrown hurriedly over the 
soul. 



120 



THE RIPENING FRUIT 

Talk with others who believe as you do, listen to them and 

go away dissatisfied. 
Grow hungry for your ideals and pass sleepless nights in 

contemplation upon them. 
Be your own teacher, your own maker of philosophies, for 

you are growing in a great solitude, a vast desert that 

will turn into a garden at your magic touch. Be afraid 

of what you teach yourself. 
Be fearless with the carrying out of your thought ; go hence 

with it and dump it into the market place when it is 

done. 
But be lonely! 



121 



KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF 

Believe in nothing created by man, in nothing but yourself. 
Have no fear of the world, be the master of your dreams and 

have limitless faith in your powers. Remember, O 

creator, you are the chosen one and as such must sit 

apart and grow wise in your loneliness. 
Have faith in beauty, drink of it and become drunk with its 

splendor. 
Distrust the faith of mankind in things unseen, believe in 

only what you touch with your hands. 
Go forth confident and remain ever so, knowing that you 

are beyond man. 
All obstacles placed in your way are but the signs of your 

coming glory, the signs of a timid community that dreads 

your power. 
Have faith in your inspiration, your work. Pause not a 

moment to consider the reception of your efforts, con- 
sider only the production. 
Why do you have these dreams, these moments of delirious 

madness and intoxicating inspiration, this endless desire 

to express yourself, unless it be for good? 
Have faith in yourself beyond everything else . . . there have 

been those having faith and no inspiration, those having 

inspiration and no faith; both bled to death. You must 

be both to be an artist, a creator. 
You are a creator if you love things for themselves. You 

are the mother of dream children. 
Go forth, Dreamer, quivering with desire. 



122 



THROUGH THE DESERT 

O youth listening at the gateways of life, vibrant with emo- 
tion; 

To you, O ripened fruit fallen from the trees and in danger 
of rotting on the earth; 

To you, O believer in the stars and sunshine, love and friend- 
ship; 

To you, O truster of yourself; 

Cast from your doorway the thought of patriotism to dead 
ideals, to governments decaying in the high places. 

Smile to yourselves at the proverbs brought down to you on 
silver platters ; scorn the stories of the wise men who 
sit like running sores in the market places. They speak 
only echoes. 

Why should we sacrifice our youth before the glassy stare of 
moldering idols? 

Distrust the incense of life and sly smiles of your friends. 

Be brutal to the pure idealist as well as the materialist in any 
form. 

We are through with the idea of service and ignorance; in 
its place we have raised the dream of individualism, every 
man for himself, an expansion of spirit. 

Be patient and go the way of the creator, for the wise, as 
well as the ignorant, will sneer at you and call you a fool, 
a coward, a craven. 

Turn on them suddenly if you must and you will see their 
souls shrink like burning paper in their eyes at the word 
"Duty." 

The multitude expect their masters to do all their thinking for 
them and will stone you for doing so. 

Take heed, O Artist, they will bleed you upon an altar 
drenched with blood and mayhap erect a cold marble 
shaft to your memory, colder than their affection, for- 
gotten as soon as a passing shower. 



123 



THROUGH THE DESERT 

Beware of smiles and sneers, see how easily one merges into 
the other. 

The same mouth laughing with you today may utter the com- 
mand for your death tomorrow. 

Be free henceforth. 

Be lonely! 



124 



THE AWAKENING 

Above all things be willing to be swept off your feet; throw 
your whole soul into each individual effort. 

Contemplation is the food that you must feed on most; action 
may kill one's dreams. 

Go into the hills and listen ; go into the streets and listen . . . 
from the silence as well as the tumult will come your 
message. 

Never apologize. 

Speak to-day those truths clamoring in your heart for utter- 
ance ; speak them as you are inspired, and on the follow- 
ing day the truths on your lips with the same force even 
though they contradict those of to-day. 

You are an artist, not a critic ... it is your duty to obey 
your nature and leave the criticism to the ages. 

The years are the best critics . . . what is best will live, what 
is less than that will surely die. 

Be careful in lifting love and friendship from the flesh to the 
spirit lest you weaken their force. Again I caution you 
to distrust the loved one, the friend ; look them in the eye. 

Walk the streets in silence and distrust the conversation of 
men. 

Have the better part of your nature concealed in the shad- 
ows, with only one side for the world. Be not communi- 
cative. 

Your eternal longing to express yourself is a guarantee that 
you are among the chosen. . . . Inspiration warns the 
dreamer of her coming by covering his path with thorns 
and intoxicating him v/ith the fragrance of eternal life. 

Lest you stumble keep your eyes on the stars. 

Praise is more dangerous than criticism ; shun it as you 
would comfort. 

Regard not the way of a master dreamer, think only of your 
way, for you are the master. 



125 



THE AWAKENING 

Weaken not your powers through useless and long-drawn out 

attempts; reserve your strength for the great work. 
Keep ceaselessly at your art, however, and let no hour pass 

without some thought about it. 
Be impatient and anxious to go ahead; the patient will is the 

possession of the dolt or the scholar. 
And above all beware of intellectuality. 
Distrust the serenity of time, it may close down upon you at 

any moment like a clap of thunder out of a clear sky. 



126 



THE PSALM OF DEATH 

When you shall own in your heart of hearts that you are no 
longer able to care for romance and learning, and are 
putting a stop to your work to eat of the fat of the 
land; 

When you shall say to yourself : "I must do as the multitude 
and the intellectuals do, I must obey custom ;" 

When you confess shamefacedly to your inner visions and 
laugh at your dreams; 

When you grow weary of the love of production, the lust for 
creation . . . 

Then shall die the Artist in you, then perish miserably the 
flowers of art sprung to life within your mind, the roses 
of thought and lilies of inspiration, as they have already 
done in the minds of a myriad others. 



127 



THE CUP OF LIFE 
(For Perley Poore Sheehan) 

FOUR PAGES FROM THE DIARY OF A MURDERER'S 
WIFE 



We sit at dusk by the window, 

Hand in hand. 

Worshipping the protection of the night. 

Bill pulls me to his great breast in a burst of passion ; 

I'll throw my head back giving him my lips 

While he crushes me to him in huge bear hugs. 

He'll run his hands softly over my thighs and breasts. 
For the big fellow he is. 

How gently, how patiently, he kisses my fingertips, 
And my eyes when they are tired. 

Some day tlie coppers are coming for him, so he says. 
"They'll send me to the chair surer than hell." 
I cuddle up to him, frightened to death, 

While we both look out of the window at the passing "L" 
trains. 

n 

Ah, you respectables, who edge away from him in the subway. 

Because of his rough appearance, 

Cauliflower ears, 

Red nose — 

What do you know about him? 

I almost laugh when I think what you would do if you found 

he had really killed someone, 
Robbed safes all his life. 
And lived with an immense price on his head. 



128 



THE DIARY OF A MURDERER'S WIFE 

But he isn't afraid of you. 

He hates you for a lot of sneaking dogs who cry when they 

are struck, 
Going around with your tails between your legs. 
Muttering and mumbling and afraid. 
He stands out against all of society. ... 
He preys on you and fights his battles alone. 
He's about the only real man I've ever met. 
When we go down the street I love to trot along beside him, 
My head bobbing down level with his shoulders. 
Hands that could crush me like a straw. 
Then at dusk . . . 

He appreciates everything that I do for him. 
The food always tastes right, 
Our tiny apartment always looks nice to him. 
Never a day passes but what he remembers me in some way, 

bringing home a flower or a box of candy, or some 

trinket he purchased just for me. 

Ill 

When he goes away I am half delirious with fear until he 
returns. 

Day after day it is so. 

The touch of his hand lingers with me like the refrain of a 
well-beloved song. 

To think of loving a man with courage enough to kill. 

All my life I was trained and groomed to marry some re- 
spectable. 

Thank God I found him in time. 

Now, perhaps they'll come along and take him away. 

Dear God, we to be separated, 

We who have carried love to the borderlands of beauty, pas- 
sion to something beyond poetical expression. 

They might get him some night when we are asleep. 

He might never return. . . . 



129 



THE DIARY OF A MURDERER'S WIFE 

IV 

Something terrible has happened. . . . 

The other night he passed a mission and stopped a moment 
to hear the sermon. 

I hate preachers. 

He talked about "forgiveness of sins," "taking religion." 

Bill returned in a penitent mood. 

His great hands hanging limply at his sides . . . hands that 
have crushed me with passion. 

By the window he sits while I am preparing the meal. 

Then he bursts into a flood of remorseful language, 

Swearing he is going to reform. 

My white lips ought to have told him the truth, but he went 
on. 

I said nothing because I thought it would blow over in a day 
or so. 

He came home a week later and told me he had taken a posi- 
tion as a clerk; 

Intended becoming "honest." 

Now he comes home every night tired out and reads his 
paper during dinner. 

And afterwards sits around in his stocking feet. 

I am learning to hate him. 

To-day I caught the eye of a man across the hall. 

Bill once told me about him. 

He is a well-known gambler and thief. 

They say he killed a woman once because she made him 
jealous. 

He's big and strong. 

I think I'll tell the police about Bill. ... 

He ought to be electrocuted. . . . 

And then I'll go across the hall some evening with an invita- 
tion in my eyes. 



130 



THE CHRISTENING 



The anointed of God lifts the brawling, puking infant in his 
arms, 

Mumbling what might be termed apologies for its miserable- 
ness, its human qualities; 

Sprinkling "holy water" on it. 

The poor mother stands aside. 

Her piteous eyes, like a sheep's, blinking with tears. 

Her breasts molded with fresh milk. 

Already she is healing and preparing herself for new chil- 
dren, like a spiritless machine. 

Half conscious. 

Half unconscious of what she is doing. 

The father tries to smile. 

That weak fleshling is figuring the cost; 

Wondering how to prevent another arrival; 

Perplexed at his wife's loss of beauty. 

Her preoccupation. 

Her forgetfulness of sex. 

A few relatives hang around like crows on a dead tree; 

Clinging to their "moral" ideas; 

Giving lip service to their gods; 

But practising hypocrisy in secret. 



The anointed of God, 

Heavy eyed and greasy with overfeeding, 

Waddling under clerical robes, not unlike a courtesan's and 

therefore attractive 
Even around his chalky bones; 



131 



THE CHRISTENING 

Hands back the yelling infant with a secret feeling of relief, 

A circus grin trickling down the corners of a sensual mouth. 

A grin termed a "smile" . . . 

Cultivated for doting mothers. 

The child has wet itself and the mother is visibly embar- 
rassed, 

Especially as it stained the robe of the anointed. 

The name has been given and the ceremony completed. 

A number would have done just as well, 

A number of zeros, 

A sign, 

A sound, 

For it is only the seal on rotten fruit; 

The trademark of a new commodity to be sold, exchanged and 
lost. 



The party leaves the sacred edifice. 

At home there is much rejoicing. 

The relatives sit and eat, taking mental stock of the parents 

and the home. 
Gathering material for criticism later on. 

That night the mother and father figure out how to m.ake 

his salary pay the various bills. 
Determining never to have any more children. 
The baby finally drops into a sound sleep. 
They are alone. 

A nearby neighbor plays "Hearts and Flowers" . . . 
A favorite of theirs. 

He remembers that she played it the first evening they met. 
He draws her into his arms. 
Taking the dish-scarred hand in his and Kissing her tired 

eyes. 
The spark of a dying passion flames up in their hearts. . . . 
They forget everything in the wonder of sex. . , . 



132 



THE ROLLING STONES 

Heed ye, the rollers, the magnificently restless. 

Preached to and warned in your youth 

By sweaty, dirty-mouthed old fathers whose tobacco juice 

dribelled in their beards ; 
Cautioned by barrel-like women 

To beware of "the rolling stone that gathers no moss." 
Go forth . . . gather no moss . . . you are not a reindeer. 
Return with the salt air of the sea in your nostrils, 
The winds of Asia blowing in your hair. 
The touch of women's hands on yours from far Araby and 

Egypt, 
The fruits eaten as you found them 
When they were ripe. . . . 
Return then, Oh, anointed of the flesh 
For you will be able to laugh in pitiless derision at the 

snouts 
Who stayed at home. 

Content with the exhausted sex of one woman, 
The exhausted spirit of one town, 
One set of friends. 
One set of ideas; 

All of them melted in a crucible of vain endeavor, 
Tawdry, bankrupt of emotions, diseased with moralism. 

And you! 

Oh winged rolling stone! 

You have touched the lips of veiled women in Constanti- 
nople, 

Heard wise men speak in distant lands, 

Breathed deeply of life . . . 

And though you may never sing of it all with your tongue- 
less mouth ; 

Being no singer, poor fool, even you cannot express beauty, 

But you can live it. 



133 



THE MORALISTS 

Oh, great are the powers and faith of the moraHsts. 

They are able to do battle for beliefs, to starve, to toil, to 

pray. 
They are strong in numbers and in muscle. 
And they fight among themselves, killing one another. 
Oh, wise are the provisions of nature. 
Providing with one stroke the desire to kill and the power 

to kill. 
Thus is the world saved for beauty. 



134 



THE MARRIAGE 

The little church shrouded in ivy and standing penitent be- 
neath the oak trees, 

Throbs with the organ notes that fill its accustomed silence 
with maddening echoes. 

The doors stand open. 

A curious crowd scatters here and there along the sidewalk, 
on the lawn and part way in the vestibule. 

The "invited" are within, sitting comfortably, but on the 
alert. 

Before the simple altar stands the minister in glittering white 
and black. 

His wizened face glowing foolishly. 

One hand is upraised and the last words of the immortal 
ceremony are being said. 

Ponderously, slowly, emphatically . . . 

The official seal that custom places on those innocents who 
stand there a moment awestruck. 

The woman, flushing red under her veil, half crazed with 
worry and half unconscious, 

Gathers her wits together as they kiss and receive the cus- 
tomary congratulations. 

Life has virtually ended for her so far as it concerns what 
has led up to the ceremony. 

Groomed, trained, repressed, guarded, scolded, petted . . . 

The clumsy hands of society have molded her and she has 
acquiesced. 

The man, a little nervous, but more wary than nervous, 

Wonders at the expense of the new life, the inevitableness 
of it all, the pleasure of claiming her body. 

It all jumbles in a sort of Aladdin-like color, 

A mixture of lights, faces, noises, music, shuffling feet, curi- 
ous glances, odd words, laughter of friends. . . . 



135 



THE MARRIAGE 

He takes her arm and they walk down the aisle, reaching their 

carriage after a perfect hailstorm of rice and shoes. 
Within she shrinks into his arms, timidly. . . . 
It is all so different now. 
Their previous meetings had been illusory, capable of instant 

separation . . . instant surrender. . . . 
But this moment the prison-like elements are paramount, and 

she is half afraid. . . . 
Of what she hardly knows. 
She has been told what marriage is. 
Yet like all stories repeated by the more experienced, 
Its grimness loses in the telling and it seemed more like a 

fairy tale. 
She has had no inkling of how society works. 
She has no imagination and therefore her only thoughts are 

of unnamed fears, uncatalogued desires, disjointed be- 
liefs, few requirements. 
He is much the same except that he is "wise" in a so-called 

worldly fashion. 
He imagines that he knows women because one or two of 

them have carelessly given themselves to him. 
Gifts that were as little value to them as to him. 
He had been drunk a few times, gambled and he ''travelled" 

with the usual crowd of "corner sports." 
He remembered now how they had twitted him as to his 

coming marriage, with sly winks and grotesque gestures. 

She fluttered a little in his arms at this moment and a jolt of 
the carriage threw them closely together. 

Simply she lifts her eyes to his, half questioning. 

How beautiful it seems, all of a sudden. 

How strange, how new. 

One of her hands steals into his and face against face they 
look out of the window at the traffic, 

Utterly apart. 

"Sweetheart," he murmurs, "We love each other, don't we?" 

For answer she snuggles close to him. 

Her breasts against his own, her entire body pressed to his. 



136 



THE MARRIAGE 

His lips find hers and mouth against mouth they forget 
everything until the cab stops at the wharf. 

They are going to Bermuda for two weeks. 

Aboard the boat and in their cabin he pulls her to him again. 

A strand of her hair blows against his eyes. 

Her cool fingers touch his. 

Like frightened children they stand there for a moment. 

Suddenly he crushes her to him in a surge of passion. 

For a moment she wilts and comes to herself to find that he 
has laid her in the berth and is kissing her eyes, her lips, 
her hands. 

She leaps to her feet, aghast, terribly afraid, 

Again he surges at her and she battles foolislily for a second. 

Then she succumbs. 

In the morning she awakens first. 

He is sleeping soundly, one hand thrown over his face, 

A typical position she is to know through the coming years. 

For a moment she looks at him, puzzled. 

Then she remembers and trembles. 

Still he sleeps. 

She gets out of bed and going to the mirror performs a hur- 
ried toilet. 

Winding her lovely hair attractively around her head, 

Then quietly she returns to the berth. 

Snuggles close to him, saying: 

"Wake up, dearie," and adding in a whisper, *'I have just 
opened my eyes." 



137 



THE CHURCH 



The great building loomed up in the twilight like a monstrous 
spirit. 

The rose window glistened as a jewel on a woman's breast, 

The glory of the structure awed one by its coldness and dig- 
nity. 

Across the street was a little shack leaning to one side. 

The door opened and a sodden beast slunk into the half- 
darkness ; 

Filthy and silent. 

And as he passed the church he crossed himself. 



This is the minister! 

His well-kept hands are folded, 

His righteous eyes glance heavenward, 

And a sickly smile trickles down the corners of his lustful, 

weak mouth. 
See him as he trips daintily along the street. 
Blushing because a woman's skirt was blown back by the 

wind, 
His head so high in the air that he almost stumbles over a 

little newsboy. 

m 

How I would like to have one of these ministers tied hand 
and foot to a post with the head pinned back 

Exposing the full throat. 

How gleefully, how carefully I would run a sharp knife 
from ear to ear; 

As the wound widened I should study the lights dying in his 
eyes. . . . 

There is too much flesh in an overly-crowded world. 



138 



THE CHURCH 



IV 



The bishop comes. 

His long, white robe trails upon the carpet spread for him 

to walk from the coach to the doorstep. 
The crowd kneel and dare not smile. 
But all I can see is a fat scamp bedecked like a courtesan 

and with heavy paunches under his eyes. 
Someone spoke of the heavenly look on his face. 
I wonder if he was thinking of the last mistress or the next. 



The funeral is in mid-progress. 

The minister kneels to pray for the soul once in the already 

rotting flesh before him. 
His lips move, but we catch no word. 
A woman sighs and whispers to a neighbor about the beauties 

of faith. 
It was a good thing she couldn't hear what he really said. 
He was swearing under his breath because he hadn't had time 

to get his dinner. 

VI 

With bowed head she kneels, praying. 

The light in the church is so soft, so faint, that she seems to 

disappear entirely at times. 
Melting strangely into the shadows. 
It seems to me that this is the spirit of religion . . . 
A woman praying . . . 

Now dimmed from the eyes in encircling darkness, 
Again silhouetted sharply before our eyes. 



139 



THE CHURCH 
vn 

The fat old priest smiled and joined the crowd of youths 
standing on the corner. 

Their laughter paused a moment and they appeared con- 
strained. 

But a second later were laughing again. 

Fully at ease in the presence of a shrewd student of human 
nature. 

vui 

Between her sobs she managed to pour forth her confession. 
The kindly father listened, gave her some advice and blessed 

her. 
The weight was lifted from her shoulders. 
She had told someone. 
Radiantly happy, she felt as though she were walking on the 

stars. 

IX 

God made the flowers grow, 
But He also empties the slops. 



It is after choir rehearsal. 

The "socially select" in the congregation have been singing 

for the sake of Jesus. 
The minister waits until all but one young woman have left 

the church. 
She stands in the doorway as he puts out the lights. 
The girl feels the arm of the minister encircling her. 
At that moment the mother is sitting by the table at home, 

sewing, contented and glad that her daughter attends 

church so regularly. 
The daughter trembles, giving him the full service of her 

lips. 
Flushing with the pleasure of newly awakened desire. 



140 



THE CHURCH 

XI 

After all some of these ministers excite in me a certain 
jealousy. . . . 

They seem so sure of everything, 
While I am sure of nothing, 
Least of all myself. 

XII 

The minister stood rubbing his sleek hands. 

Nodding his head at the crowd 

That poured from their autos and wagons into his red-brick 

church. 
I passed down the lane a few minutes later 
And the night was filled with their songs. 
As I came out on the main road 
I found a dog dying in agony. 
It had been struck by one of the worshippers 
Who was afraid of being late 
At the services. 



141 



SILHOUETTES OF THE COUNTRY 

(For Byron Box) 

SILENCE 

They stand around the weird, black box that holds the dead, 

His wife, two little children, one or two friends. 

Now and then the quick catch of the wife's breath, breaking 
on the stillness like a dagger thrust. 

The children find their mother's hands, looking on, puzzled. 

The smallest seeks a corner of her sleeve. 

The older buries her face in the mother's dress, bursting into 
tears, 

Begging to be taken away. 

They leave with clumsy efforts to do so quickly. 

"He was a fine fellow," one of the friends remarks as he 
gets his hat preparatory to going. 

The wife thanks him with her eyes, 

Struggling with a vast emotion. 

The house becomes silent again. 

Now the children plead for their dinner. 

Almost frightened at the sacrilege she goes into the kitchen 
for some cold meat. 

Only the day before he stood there cursing her for a late 
meal, 

His brutal face beaming like a red apple. 

How he had torn her with his insults time and again! 

"But I must forget that now," she mumbles to herself dis- 
tractedly. 

The children are fed, and put to bed, the friend who re- 
mained in the meanwhile sitting near the coffin in the 
"front" room. 

The mother comes in after a time and they sit together pa- 
tiently, hand in hand. 

And then comes to her mind the moment of his death. 



142 



SILENCE 

It was near midnight and he had reached out a filthy hand — 
The motion that was so distinctive of him after a drunken 

rout. 
Instinctively she shrank as from the touch. 
Then she saw his face again . . . 
The red apple. . . . 
It had been pressed against hers, 
The rough beard cutting into her flesh like a thousand 

needles. 
His arms folded her like a beast. 
For the first time in their life together she resisted, 
Half sobbing to herself. 
He swore instinctively, but she jumped from the bed and ran 

across the floor and out into the hall. 
The thunder of his coming followed her. 
She had just time to step aside as he toppled headlong into 

the darkness of the kitchen stairs. 
They found him crumpled like a dirty rag an hour later. 
She was surprised at the ease with which she glibly described 

his going for a drink of water. 
The fall and then . . . 
She sighed. 

The friend took her hand murmuring, 
"You poor dear, how it must hurt to lose him." 
And together the two women sat looking at the coffin. 



143 



AT THE CROSSROADS 



Three old women standing by the road, 
Seeing me and talking among themselves. 
Miserable old sexless creatures, 
Exhausted of passion, 
Dried up with gossip. 

Their hair combed back over unthinking heads. 
Their dresses falling from shrivelled breasts 
In unemotional lines. 

II 

Three dark, dirty little saloons. 

Cadaverous citizens drooping around the doorways in the 

evening. 
A glimpse of a ragged child, 
A child-heavy mother, 
A nasty dog. . . . 
To-day I heard one rhapsodize about the beauties of the 

country. 
And yet I have seen 

A spider and a solitary wasp in a death struggle 
On a beautiful day; 

Flies skimmed from the proverbial "fresh" milk; 
A child beaten unmercifully by the famous "kindly old 

father ;" 
Open sewers by the road; 
Battered barns ; 
Fire-swept houses; 
Little settlements so vile that the imagination became dull 

at the recital of murders and crimes unspeakable; 
All this in the beautiful country 

That has been sung of by Riley like an innocent girl's eyes. 
Who shall sing of her when she has been covered with kisses? 



144 



ROMANCE 

I passed the house 

And stopped thrilled at this sign: 

TRA SMANS EN RANG 

Words that might have been inscribed by some dead hand 

On a crumbling ruin in ancient France. . . . 

How terrible was it to learn that the words only spelt 

"Tradesman's Entrance," 

With some of the letters missing. 



145 



THE CHILDREN 

The children were playing hide-and-seek 

By the path, 

I happened to look at one of them, 

Plump and red-faced she was, 

With that glance of ignorance and affectation that would 

cling to her 
All her days. 

Like the odor around old furniture. 
Already she knew everything she would ever know, 
Or understand. . . . 



146 



AT DUSK 

The man stumbled from the doorway, 

Putting his hat on clumsily. 

The face of a fat woman appeared behind him, 

Smiling in a contented sort of way. . . . 

Had she no memories that were like hot flames in the dark- 



ness 



And had he no thought of beauty as he came forth from the 
dripping thighs of love? 

The whole countryside was interested in the affair, 

Making continuous fun of the husband who came home 

regularly on the 7.02 each night, 
Unsuspecting what went on during the day. 

Three ignorants. 

Each missing the important things in life. 



147 



THE SECRET STORY 

"You should have met Mr. Myers," 

The old caretaker said. 

"He died last year. 

He would have left my daughter a lot of money hadn't his 

sister been so selfish. 
Why, he had bundles did up marked 'Tillie' what he often 

told us about. 
Year after year he used to come here with his camera. 
He took lovely pictures. 
George go get that album. 
He took a fancy onto us kind of touching, 
Especially in such an old bachelor. 
When George married Tillie he was away. 
But I wrote him and he sent her the most beautiful set of 

dishes, 
All scalloped, with flowers. 
Must have cost fifty dollars, at least. 
He came next summer and took these pictures. 
That's the one, George, give it to the gentleman. 
That's the house from the front . . . the family spent a lot 

of money on it a hundred years back. 
Afore I come to be caretaker the last of them was put out. 
Who owns it now? 

Why, a Jew that lent the sisters lots of money. 
They live across that hill. 
They come here very seldom, 
The youngest cried so the last time she came. 

"This picture is of Tillie down in the cellar making out she's 

a prisoner. 
Mr. Myers made her let her hair down. 
He thought it was lovely. 



148 



THE SECRET STORY . 

"I don't know how he took it in that dark room. 
These were taken on the stairs and in different spots. 
He was a most wonderful picture taker." 

As old Mrs. Mason ground on I saw the whole story- 
Like a picture, behind her blurred sentences. 
Myers loved the daughter with all the fervor of a broken 

spirit. 
Nice old gentleman, well preserved, wealthy. 
Perhaps he had thought of marriage and been timid. 
And then she married this whippersnapper — this shaken thing 

of clumsy hands — George ! 
And these pictures ; 
How he must have delighted in taking them with her hair 

falling about her shoulders, 
Her lighted face raised to his. 

If he had been a painter he would have immortalized her, 
But had he been a great painter there would have been other 
things he could not picture. 

Their eyes may have met for a hundredth part of a second 

on rare occasions ... he hitting the camera suddenly in 

self-conscious way. 
Sweet Christ, how it must have hurt him. 
As I looked upon her sitting there by the window, 
Silent, 

Toying with her delicate fingers, 
I wondered about them more and more. 
She was lovely, 
With a piquant illusiveness that draws the flesh out by the 

roots. 
Could he have been a moralist and left her as he found her? 
Or did he gather up her departing courage 
And lift her to his lips 
Like an aroused god who stirs from a sleep of a thousand 

centuries ? 



149 



THE SECRET STORY 

If a stray wisp of her hair blew against his mouth how it 

must have tantalized him, 
Driven him like a beast in a tempest of suppressed passion 
That might have withered before a Puritanical conscience. 

Old Mrs. Mason went mumbling on. 

Tillie sat silent in the window, looking out on the river. 

George put the album back in the drawer with a banging 

noise. 
I pondered over the relationship of one conscience to five 

senses. 



150 



"IN THE SPRING A YOUNG MAN'S FANCY" 

Now that you ask me, 

Knudson was kind o' peculiar. 

Down here in the valley we have queer things happening now 

and then. 
The thing that started it I believe, was the contrast — 
She — small and willowy like, 
He — bulky, loud-mouthed and selfish. 
With a way of hitching up his shoulder 
And bellowing that set my nerves on edge 
Like a fellow blowing through a piece of tissue paper 
On a fine tooth comb ; 

His huge head surmounted by a roaring flame 
Of red hair. 
His hands — they kept twitching, twitching, like as though he 

was thinking of something. 
He'd sit in the kitchen while Carrie pared the potatoes, 
I was working for 'em then and I didn't like his way — 
Did you ever go into a room filled with people 
Realizing that something had been said about you just before 

you entered? 
Weil, that's the way I felt. 
He was never impolite — not exactly that — 
He only rolled his eyes at you and twitched his fingers. 

When we had to get another hand he took on Fred — 

Yes, he's the one — 

He was fat and when he worked hard 

He w^ould turn red and sweat like a squeezed sponge. 

But he was a good worker and didn't shirk none. 

I'm not sure ... it seems to me it was 'long about spring 

When Fred began mooning a bit. 

Refusing to talk or be the least bit sociable. 



151 



"IN THE SPRING A YOUNG MAN'S FANCY" 

He used to eat in the kitchen. 

Carrie hung around the stove in the steam 

And would come parading up to the table with a great pan 

of hot biscuits — 
She's a good cook — always was — 
Saying nothing at all hardly, just like Fred, 
Knudson he twisted his big hands all the time, 
Looking sleepy-eyed. . . . 

But once I caught him smiling when Fred stooped over 
To do some little favor for Carrie — 
His fat face turned red and he certainly looked silly 
Down on his knees there picking up the overturned peas. 
I was suspicious then — I kept my eyes open you bet. 
One day in the field Fred blurted it all out — 
I felt sorry for him but I told him to leave 
And not to bother Carrie any longer, 
Fred wiped his nose with his old bandanna, saying, 
'T could kill the dog ... I came yesterday evening with the 

milk . . . 
He was a-holding Carrie in his lap with one of those dirty 

hands of his 
On her leg . . . when he saw me he laughed out loud. 
Kissing her smack on the mouth just as though I wasn't 

there. . . . 
Of course she's his wife, but he did it to make me jealous. . . . 
He's a damn selfish dog. . . . I've a good mind . . ." 

Poor Fred he was clean wild, 
I tried to get him to go away — 
He would hang around though . . . 
The rest you know. . . . 
Knudson got him one day right on the head 
With a rake. . . . 

They had to pull the teeth out he drove 'em in so far. 
They let Knudson off because he simply told the jury 
As how he found Fred kissing a little strand of her hair 
That he kept in the back of his watch — not enough to clear 
a man for murder. 



153 



"IN THE SPRING A YOUNG MAN'S FANCY" 

I don't know why Fred admitted it to him; 

No one knew what they really said to each other. 

Yes, that's why I don't take much stock in you city poets 

Who write about the fine country and all that stufif. 

It appears to me that such fellows as Riley and Tarleton 

Ought to be strung up for doin' so much prevaricatin'. . . . 

You say they're dead. . . . 

They ought to be. 



153 



LOOSE LEAVES 

(For Henry Leverage) 

THE GREAT SYMPHONY 



The avenue is blocked with the black crovsrds. 

The police stand here and there attempting to control them. 

The sun blazes down out of a clear sky. 

Line after line of union men march by . . . sweeping lines 

that pour up the street and disappear . . . 
Banners, hats, color, music, the beating of drums, the heat, 

the excitement. 



And I am saddened by this exhibition of machinery . . . this 
bHnd assembly of souls under the stern leadership of 
their leaders . . . our leaders . . . our masters. 

I look upon this raw material, these strange, foreign faces 
lighted by the dying flames of hope. . . . 

I see them and what will come of this great republic born 
out of grief and sacrifice. . . . 

I listen to the stirring music of the passing bands and the 
tears start to my eyes. . . . 

My heart throbs with the endless procession ; I feel kin to 
them, I understand them. 

There is an old man attempting to keep up with his fellows; 

There is a j^oung upstart bearing his banner proudly; 

There is a middle-aged business man in high hat; a line of 
mere youths ; a slight chap in tweeds ... all under the 
hands of power, helpless children of circumstance. 



154 



THE GREAT SYMPHONY 



III 



Still the swaying lines sweep by. 

1 grow tired watching them, I am frightened at the great 

strength typified in this throng ... I am filled with 

marvellous sympathy for them and yet my heart cries 

for a dreamer, 
One who will mould and control this shapeless mass to the 

will that burns in him. 
And I know that I, too, shall follow him, glad that we have 

such might in a single mind, such power in a solitary 

spirit. 
Oh leader, you are wanted. 

IV 

When the sun goes down they are still marching . . . when 
the stars rise they are still marching . . . 

Through all the days I see them marching . . . one tremend- 
ous stream pouring down the street. 

A great symphony of human flesh! 



156 



TO 



Like a candle gutted in the darkness you suddenly went oui 

of my life awhile. 
I was standing in a great cathedral 
Listening to the sweetest music of life 
Suddenly realizing that it had ceased, 
That I stood in a dead silence amid the shadows. 



The touch of a hand ; 

The caress of a loved one's eyes; 

The whisper of supreme passion; 

The fragrance of a haunted garden of flov^^ers ; 

Then a night of memories. 

Ill 

Amid the ebb and flow of life, 
Among the huge machinery of things. 
In the dust of the city . . . 

One home, one heart, one thought, one place to return to and 
be comforted. 

IV 

In the woods listening to the soft notes of a lonely bird 

Off in the forest depths . . . 

The passing of that music into the heart; 

A great silence without, a world of beauty within. 



Dusk and thoughts of love I 



156 



OUR HELEN 

Helen of Troy has been Helen to us all, 

The Helen of Homer, of Goethe, of Marlowe, 

No less than the Helen of a laborer who wipes his oily hands 

upon his sleeve. 
The Helen of a dry goods' clerk. 



157 



SEX 

The strength of a man is never tested until he has known 

passionate love. 
He may build cities, 
Erect kingdoms, 

Be master of men and ruler of wide lands. 
But one innocent-looking woman, 
Slender, dark-eyed and of whispering tongue. 
Can wrap him like a withered flower around her smallest 

finger. 



158 



THE PUBLIC LIBRARY 

Long marble halls. 

Large offices awry with desks. 

Women like huge harpies clinging to the files that line the 
walls, 

Sexless things that function as a jelly fish might in the stag- 
nant air. 

There is a whispering of gossip, 

Soft footsteps of male attendants (women in disguise). 

This is the edge of the world of thought, the cliff overhanging 

superstition, 
These automatons dare to suppress books, to even regulate 

the thought of those who are out in the market places 

doing the work of the world. 
Given a great trust they twist it into hideous shape, either 

helping to hound a Poe or a Shelly to his death, or biting 

at the shanks of the giants like gnats. 
A great mausoleum of rattling bones. 
Oh! for some fool anarchist with a bomb! 



159 



TO MY LOVE WITH SOME VERSES 

I've brought my flowers to you 

The fairest plucked from the garden of dreams, 

But they wither. , . . 

See, even as I hand them to you in the glare of day 

They wither moodily and drop away. 

Think, Love, I plucked them when they swung their fragile 

heads 
To and fro in some neglected corner of the garden. 
They were almost smothered by the weeds. 
Near choked with stagnant air. 
Yet had they grown and I have plucked them. 
Take them as you would a handful of stars from the open 

hands of God. 
Withered as they seem, near you they will waken to life ; 
Pinned to your bodice they will absorb your love and grow 

beautiful again. 
Take them, Love, withered as they are. 



160 



L'ENVOI 

I've danced to your tunes long enough. 

I've sung my heart to sleep a thousand times with songs of 

you. 
I've waited upon you and been jealous. 
I've hungered that you might dress well. 
I've laughed with a soul full of tears to hear you laugh. 
I have worked while you slept. 

And all the time I did not know one thing, one simple thing: 
That we were only children obeying the dirty laws of nature. 



161 



A WOMAN'S DRESS 

Did you ever notice the rhythm, the soft music, in the rustle 

of a woman's dress 
About her legs? 
How it folds, caresses and enriches her beauty, that appeal 

to passion. 



162 



FLORENCE, ITALY, 1500 

I've loved him ever since . . . God help my soul ! 

The Padre wondered when I spoke of him 

So jealously and made me say my beads 

Each day that week. He might have been more fair 

With three Our Fathers and three Hail Mary's given 

Leniently . . . but, goodness, one must think 

Too much of saving one's poor soul these days ; 

My lord, the Duke, possessed it two years gone 

Regarding it as some stray gift cast down 

To him ; a treasure I looked careless on 

As well as he did, or I'd not have sold 

It half so cheaply . . . Mother Mary, it hurts 

At times to be considered worse than dead 

By those who loved me, and to have to slink 

Through evening shadows next these ancient walls 

For loving passionatel3\ They turn their faces. 

Even the children snicker, or seem afraid 

Of me. A woman just the other day 

Drew up her skirts in dread, edging away 

And leaving me the whole right of the walk. 

I took it, too. I strutted by her quick, 

Head up, ej'^es flashing and my heart a hot 

Coal in my breast. The Duke? Oh, they just smile 

And smile when he drives past amid his friends, 

And whirl on in a rising cloud of dust. 

My lord, the Duke's gruff, hearty laugh above 

Them all. To think, but two years gone I held 

His very head against my heart and kissed 

His eyes, his lips. He loved to come nightly 

After twelve, or one, and pass the time 

With me. He was the Duke, could I refuse? 

Then, Mother Mary, I loved him so, more than 



163 



FLORENCE, ITALY, 1500 

My life. God help me, I was overcome 
With passion, swept along and trampled down 
Without the friendly strength of sympathy. 
Family, friends . . . foes, only foes 
To mock me and to turn aside, or call 
Behind me in the streets. But then, my Lord, 
The Duke caught sight of me and sent his man 
To call me to his chamber late that night. 
I gasped. Picked from a hundred others, tool 
Of course I knew that I v/as beautiful, 
Am so still, but he grew tired soon. 
A year, I think, or two. My memory's not 
So good as once it was. He paid me well. 
I took it wisely and as soon spent all 
With foolish vanity. I didn't know. 
So now I stand aside and see him pass 
Among his friends. Once he saw me, smiled 
Darkly, turned his head and then was gone. 
It's over now. I guess I'm fixed all right, 
Yet now and then I wish my lord, the Duke, 
Were with me, whispering and laughingly 
Disarming my embarrassment with kisses. 
These haughty women may pass sneeringly 
But I have seen them tremble at his frown 
And fawn upon his hand and strain their necks 
To catch a fleeting smile. I've loved the Duke 
And he loved me. 

The Padre will be cross. 
I don't know which is the better ; to be loved 
By this shrewd Padre or the Duke. The Church, 
The State. Oh, well, it's not so bad to fall 
Out of the Duke's proud arms into this priest's. 
The Padre has more passion, the Duke more gold. 
I love them both. But now I must hurry home. 



164 



DEAD HANDS 



Day after day in the long office lined with the eternal desks. 
Patiently you formed the boyish clay into a semblance of 

manhood. 
Yourself past forty, clinging like a vine to life, 
With the strength of a dream. 
You were taken sick ... I kissed you. . . . 
Your torn hands were like white flowers lying on the bed 

covers. 

The office machinery whirled on. 

And now I have these things to remember clearly: 

A night when you let me hold you in my arms a moment, 
saying : 

"You do love me, boy, you do," 

And second, a copy of Palgraves Golden Treasury 

Marked in your handwriting: 

"To H. H. from . . . Christmas, 19 — , In remembrance May- 
July, 19-:' 



The walls were lined with the dark files 

Against which the patient clerks hung like bats half asleep, 

Their hands turning and filing the cards. . . . 

Into this I was thrown after being expelled from school 

And it might have claimed me by its insiduous calm 

Had you not understood and listened to the reading of my 

stuff 
Knowing that the boy had some hope of a real life 
If you were kind. . . . 

in 

Back of us all is some lighted face that never fades, 



165 



DEAD HANDS 

Around the wide circle of life we come back to it, 
Again and again, 

Wondering at the ignorance of youth 
When it first plucks the flowers of love 
With clumsy hands. 



166 



SONG 

A sigh is the semblance of Christ's rich voice, 

It contains the breath of sorrow. . . . 

Wine is the semblance of Christ's red blood, 

It is the wine of the earth. . . . 

Hearts are the semblance of Christ's own heart, 

They beat and are ruled by death. . . . 

And we are the semblance of Chnst himself, 

For we are the essence and fruitage of earth. 



167 



LINES AT RANDOM 



Perhaps more than all else, has your quickening sympathy- 
Awakened in me 

The full, swinging sense of that responsibility 
So needed by the dreamer. 



Across the miles, 

Beside me, 

Ever and always the touch of your sensitive fingers. 



ni 



Out of a night of impenetrable darkness 
A lonely dreamer 
Wandering on a great desert 
May find one star in the heavens 
And weave his romance around it. 



But a moment to meet, 

One frail moment that might have spluttered 

And gone out in the mad winds of circumstance. 



To know that in the world. 

Even at the outermost ends of the world, 

One spirit understands, 

And lifts supplicating hands 

To the unseen gods for our sakes. 

Ah ! that were good. 



168 



NOV 1 S 1919 



